Awareness and practices of menstruation and pubertal changes amongst unmarried female adolescents in a rural area of East Delhi

Abstract

This community-based cross-sectional study was conducted in the village of Gazipur in East Delhi from April 1998 to November 1998. Unmarried girls between the ages of 10-19 years comprised the study group. Only girls from the local permanent population who had resided in the village for at least five years before the inception of the study were included. There were 500 adolescent girls in the study area out of which 251 formed the study group. The 251 girls were interviewed through a door-to-door survey using a precoded pretested and close-ended questionnaire. The main limitation was that whereas our inclusion criteria specified only unmarried adolescent girls as eligible for the study the average age at marriage in the study area was low and most older adolescent girls were already married. Out of the 251 girls 127 had attained menarche. Of the 251 girls 71 (28.2%) were in the age-group of 10-11 years 60 (23.9%) were in the age-group of 12-13 years 52 (20.7%) were in the age group of 14-15 years 35 (14%) were in the age-group of 16-17 years and 33 (13.2%) were in the age-group of 18-19 years. (excerpt)