PRACTICE OF MENSTRUAL HYGIENE MANAGEMENT AND ASSOCIATED FACTORS AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL GIRLS IN CHELENKO TOWN, EAST HARARGHE ZONE, EASTERN ETHIOPIA

Abstract

During menstruation, school girls are hampered with challenges related to the management of menstrual hygiene in school. Globally girls miss up to (20%) of school due to their monthly period, and one in ten will drop out altogether. Three hundred thirty-five million girls went to schools without water and soap available worldwide. Lack of knowledge and poor personal hygienic practices during menstruation was extremely limited among school going girls. Objective: To asses’ practices of menstrual hygiene management and associated factors among secondary school girls in chelenko town, East Hararghe, Oromia, Ethiopia in the year 2020/2021 accadamic year. Methods: School based cross sectional study was conducted among randomly selected 486 school girls at chelenko secondary school in the same year. Simple random sampling technique was used to select the study participants. Pretested and structured questionaire was used to collect the data through self-administered questionaire. Data were analysed using statistical package for social science (SPSS) version 23 to determine the association between dependant and independant variables by multivariate logistic regression. Results: Among the study participants, three hundred twenty-eight of them practiced good menstrual hygiene. It revealed that poor menstrual hygiene was practiced among those participants who had low level of knowledge about menstrual hygiene [AOR =1.92, 95% CI: ( 1.14, 3.20)], lower wealth index category [AOR=0.14, 95% CI: (0.08,0.25)] and donot earn permanent pocket money to buy sanitary material [AOR=2.08, 95% CI: ( 1.27, 3.40)] and being in grade level of (9-10) [AOR=0.34, 95% CI: ( 0.21, 5.55)] than their counterparts. Conclusion: One third of the study participants had poor or low menstrual hygiene practice. Different factors affect the practice of menstrual hygiene such as maternal educational status, family wealth index, grade level, permanent pocket money and knowledge about menstrual hygiene. Community health workers should provide awwarness about menstrual hygiene management for mothers and that the family or relatives should support their school girls during menstruation.