Prevelance of symptoms during menstruation and its management among adolescent girls

Abstract

Background: Menstruation is a natural phenomena of the female reproductive cycle in which discharge of blood from the uterus exits through the vagina every month, it is the spontaneous onset of puberty. 75% of girls confront some problems associated with menstruation including delayed, irregular, painful and heavy menstrual bleeding. Menstruation can be accompanied with premenstrual and postmenstrual symptoms which include both physiological symptoms and psychological symptoms. It is important to treat both physiological and psychological symptoms with pharmacological and nonpharmacological treatment approaches.Methods: The study was a prospective observational study done with a sample size of 650 subjects of 9 to 18 age group in whom menstruation already occurred were recruited from five different schools in regions of Pathanamthitta and Alappuzha. The study was conducted in 3 phases, where initially a predesigned well-structured questionnaire was provided to assess the attitude, awareness and practices.Results: Subjects experienced some or other type of symptoms and had better knowledge regarding menstrual symptoms and its importance of management when compared to subjects from other regions of India which was imparted from a developed and supporting society but still, they lacked some adequate and updated information on symptoms and management of symptoms during menstruation.Conclusions: So, this study laid the groundwork for discussion on menstrual symptoms, various approaches of treatment to the adolescent girls, providing them the information they lacked and better guidance.