Knowledge and attitude of menstruation hygiene, contraception and sexual transmitted disease among school girls of Lunawada, Mahisagar, Gujarat, India

Background: Around ¾th of adolescent girls have experiencing menstrual dysfunction and it disturbs the routine daily workout4. UNICEF reported that total number of adolescent girls in India is 243 million which cover almost 20% of the Indian population. The objectives of the current study were to observe the knowledge and attitude regarding menstruation, contraception and sexually transmitted diseases among secondary and higher secondary school girls.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in the city of Vadodara during August 2016 to September 2016. The study included girls high school of standard 8th to 12th of Vadodara city. Around 310 adolescent students of standard 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th. From each standard, 62 girls were selected by simple random technique with the help of their attendance register. Results: Around 71.4% participants believed that menstruation is natural process and 22.7% believed as abnormal process. Around 62.6% of participants believed for reason of menstruation is “Female becomes capable of child bearing”. Almost 9.0% participants did not know about organ of reproduction and 18.4% did not know about the physical changes during puberty. only 14.5% participants believed that coitus is the culprit of STD transmission. Teacher and mother were the main source of information for participants regarding STD. Almost 55.4% participants were aware about condom as contraceptive method followed by oral pills and permanent sterilization.Conclusions: Menstrual hygiene and prevention of STD diseases should be considered important issue at all the levels of health care system, where number of factor influence in the awareness and practice in rural area. Education regarding reproductive health should be included in the curriculum in all schools