An epidemiological study on menstrual knowledge among school going adolescent girls of 9th-12th standard of northwestern Punjab: a government private school comparison

Background: Although menstrual knowledge is pivotal in adolescent health education, shaping girl’s understanding of their bodies, reproductive health, and overall well-being but difference is seen in knowledge of government and private school adolescent girls. Therefore, a study was planned to compare menstrual knowledge of government and private school adolescent girls and determine its associated factors. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in 28 senior secondary schools (14 government and 14 private) of Amritsar district, Punjab from which 1120 adolescent girls studying in class 9th,10th,11th and 12th standard (10 per class per school) were randomly selected. A semi-structured questionnaire was self-administered to collect the information from the study participants and data was analysed using SPSS version 21.0 and chi-square and unpaired t-test was used to establish association. Results: The study reveals that overall mean score for private school goers was found to be 3.6±1.32 which was significantly higher than the government school goers (2.4±1.53). Menstrual knowledge was found to be associated with age, place of residence, type of family, caste, socio-economic status, educational and occupational status of both the parents. Conclusions: Knowledge was found to be better among private in comparison to government school adolescent girls.