A Qualitative Content Analysis of Rural and Urban School Students’ Menstruation-Related Questions in Bangladesh

Deena Mehjabeen (), Erin C. Hunter (), Mehjabin Tishan Mahfuz, Moshammot Mobashara, Mahbubur Rahman and Farhana Sultana
Additional contact information
Deena Mehjabeen: Translational Health Research Institute, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia
Erin C. Hunter: School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
Mehjabin Tishan Mahfuz: Environmental Interventions Unit, Infectious Diseases Division, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B), Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh
Moshammot Mobashara: Environmental Interventions Unit, Infectious Diseases Division, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B), Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh
Mahbubur Rahman: Environmental Interventions Unit, Infectious Diseases Division, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B), Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh
Farhana Sultana: Environmental Interventions Unit, Infectious Diseases Division, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B), Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 16, 1-15

Abstract: Nearly half of Bangladeshi girls reach menarche without knowledge of menstruation and many fear seeking support due to pervasive menstrual stigma. We aimed to explore the types of menstruation-related information and support adolescent female and male students want but may be uncomfortable verbalising. We installed a locked box in four school classrooms in rural and urban Bangladesh as part of a menstrual hygiene management pilot intervention between August 2017 and April 2018. Trained teachers provided puberty education to female and male students in classes 5–10 (ages 10–17 years) and encouraged students to submit questions anonymously to the boxes if they did not want to ask aloud. We conducted a content analysis of the 374 menstruation-related questions from a total of 834 submissions. Questions regarded experiences of menstrual bleeding (35%); menstrual symptoms and management (32%); menstrual physiology (19%); behavioural prescriptions and proscriptions (6%); concerns over vaginal discharge (4%); and menstrual stigma, fear, and social support (4%). Students wanted to understand the underlying causes of various menstrual experiences, and concern over whether particular experiences are indicative of health problems was pervasive. Ensuring comprehensive school-based menstruation education and strengthening engagement among schools, parents, and healthcare providers is important for improving access to reliable menstrual health information and may relieve adolescents’ concerns over whether their menstrual experiences are ’normal’.

Keywords: qualitative research; menstrual health; menstrual hygiene management; Bangladesh; schools; puberty; health education (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/16/10140/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/16/10140/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:16:p:10140-:d:889579

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().