A Descriptive Study to Assess the Washing and Swapping Habits (WASH) during Menstruation among adolescent girls in selected school

Abstract

Menstrual hygiene is a subject which is as old as humanity but has gained recent importance due to the readiness of the society to accept its challenges1. Adolescent girls face a gamut of problems of which the menstrual problems are the most common. Descriptive survey-based study aimed to assess the WASH- Washing and Swapping habits during Menstruation among adolescent girls in the selected schools. 100 adolescents’ girls were recruited by convenience sampling method. Self-devised tool used to collect the data and simple descriptive statistics such as mean and percentage were used to analyse the data. This study revealed that 98% of the girls using only the sanitary pads, 60% of the girls do the perineal wash during their urination only, 82% of the girls do the perineal wash with the water in room temperature, 56% girls use cleansing agents for perineal wash: in which 30% of them were using soap as a cleansing agent, 74% of the girls absent during menstruation, only 40% of them were using the wash room whenever its necessary, 62% of the girls were having regular menstruation, 78% of the girls were discussing about their menstrual problems with their mother, 70% of the girls knew about menstruation only at the time of menarche and 63.26% of the girls using napkins for 3-4 hours per day. Only one student was using cloth wrappers during menstruation and washing and drying it inside her room.