Effect of Socioeconomic Conditions and Lifestyles on Menstrual Characteristics among Rural Women

Abstract

Volume 5 • Issue 1 • 1000298 J Women's Health Care ISSN: 2167-0420 JWHC, an open access journal demographics, like age, age at menarche, age at marriage, life styles, fertility, education, occupation and income was procured. Information about women's perception on their own health problems, menstrual hygiene, menstrual problems, regularity of the cycle, use of hormonal contraceptives, bowel habit and prevalence of reproductive tract infections and sexual transmitted diseases (RTI/STDs) were collected. The prevalence of self reported non-communicable diseases was recorded. Regarding the birth control measures, 83 percent of the women have undergone tubectomy. In the remaining sample, no participant was found practicing temporary birth control measures. Hence, we dropped the variable for further statistical analysis to see its effect on menstrual characteristics. Educational level of the participants and their family income were recorded through their public distribution cards. Physical activity was assessed based on subjects occupational and leisure time activities [14]. Participants were requested to recall their first experience of menstrual bleeding to ascertain the age at menarche. Information on age at marriage, first and last pregnancies, and number of pregnancies was gathered. Menstrual cycle length was defined as the gap between first day of one bleeding episode to previous day of next bleeding episode. Duration of menstrual flow was defined as the number of days from first bleeding initiation to last bleeding. Further, different problems related to menstruation were enquired. Since the sample is from rural background, there will be ample possibility that women may use materials other than sanitary napkin, which may exert adverse effect on menstrual health. To test this, women were enquired regarding the usage of sanitary material during menstruation. Precautionary measures were taken to check the recall bias on self reported information provided by the subject. Statistical analysis was carried out via SPSS 16.0 and alpha level was set at p < 0.05. Qualitative variables were provided with percentages. Chi square test has been applied to see the strength of association with independent variables. Age adjusted multivariate (binary) logistic regression model with forward conditional entry was employed in predicting the menstrual characteristics. The independent variables entered were education, income, physical activity, duration of menstrual flow, menstrual problems, material used during menstruation, diabetes, hypertension, history of RTI/STDs and bowel habits. In each step the variables were entered at 0.05 and removed at 0.10. This model consists of five steps with variables like history of RTI/STDs, diabetes, menstrual problems, duration of menstrual flow and material used during menstruation. 91.2 percent of the cases were correctly classified. The false positives were 4 and false negatives were 62.