Background: Menstrual problems affect women, especially adolescent girls physically, mentally, socially, and psychologically. Though menstruation-related problems are commonly encountered, knowledge level and health-seeking behavior are found to be inadequate in other regional countries which are needed to face these problems successfully and confidently.Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence, the knowledge level, and identify potential reasons preventing adolescent girls from seeking health care for menstrual problems.Methods: A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out in a girl’s school of Borella educational division which was selected randomly. A cluster sampling was employed within the school to form a core of study participants from grades 10, 11, 12, and 13. A self-administered questionnaire was used as the study tool.Results: The study proceeded with 115 participants who gave assent and parental consent. Prevalence of dysmenorrhea, menorrhagia, oligomenorrhea, and irregular menstruation was observed with respective percentages of 17.4%,20.2%, 15.7%, and 27.1%. Knowledge level was estimated to be good only among 36.52% but 60.0% of the students understand menstruation as a physiological process. The doctor’s gender (58.3%), feeling embarrassed about clinical examination (42.6%) and embarrassing private questions (35.7) were identified as the main reasons preventing seeking health care.Conclusion: Prevalence of all the menstrual problems obeyed the previous global, regional and local research findings. The knowledge level of the study population regarding menstrual problems was unsatisfactory among the majority of the study population.
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Anantharajah et al. (2022) studied this question.
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