Knowledge and Hygiene Self‐Care Practices During Menstruation Among Adolescent School Girls

Background Menstruation is a natural physiological process that begins in girls during adolescence. Inadequate menstrual hygiene leads to serious reproductive health issues. Notwithstanding, enhancing knowledge about menstruation prior to its onset can significantly promote menstrual self‐care hygiene practices. When it comes to these concerns, the school nurse is crucial in helping girls live better lives. Objective Assess adolescents′ knowledge and evaluate self‐care practices concerning menstrual hygiene and explore the relationship between knowledge and self‐care with different selected demographic characteristics. Materials and Methods A quantitative, descriptive, cross‐sectional study was conducted in intermediate and secondary schools in Holy Karbala City involving 300 adolescent girls. The study started on January 8, 2023, to the end of August 2023. A self‐administered, semistructured questionnaire was utilized to collect data on demographics, knowledge about menstruation, menstrual history, and self‐care during menstruation. Result The results indicate that the source of girls’ information about self‐care during menstruation was mothers, represented (84.7%). Regarding the menstrual period, 75.7% had bleeding for 4–6 days, and 45% had an interval of 21–32 days between menstrual periods. This result exposed that the n = 93; 31% of adolescent girls who participated in this study had good knowledge regarding menstruation, while ( n = 13; 4.4%) of them had poor knowledge. Also, 180 out of 300 participants represented 60% had good self‐care hygiene practice. Additionally, there is a statistical significance between adolescent girls’ knowledge and self‐care hygiene practices about menstruation with their age group, mothers’ education level, and family income monthly at p ≤ 0.05, respectively. Conclusion Knowledge and self‐care hygiene practices toward menstruation are unsatisfactory. Creating awareness of self‐care hygiene during the menstrual period as part of the study in school is recommended.