Menstrual hygiene among students of a tertiary institution in Benin city, Nigeria

Abstract

Menstrual hygiene refers to a constellation of personal sanitation during menstruation and it involves use of appropriate sanitary pads, regular bathing and changing of clothes. The sustenance of menstruation related monthly sanitation, places an extra burden on the socioeconomic status and academic activity of females. The study aimed at assessing the pattern of menstrual hygiene amongst girls of a tertiary institution in Benin. This cross sectional study was done using a pretested structured questionnaire amongst 125 students of a tertiary institution in Benin after ethical approval from the Ethics and Collaboration Committee. The study revealed that 95.6% of the subjects used appropriate sanitary pads while 81.46% disposed menstrual absorbents in the thrash, 9.27% washed and reused the menstrual absorbent and 7.95% disposed the used sanitary pads in the toilet and flushed. However, the remaining 1.32% disposed their sanitary pads in a nearby bush. The commonest source of information (33.40%) regarding menstrual hygiene was mothers, while fathers were the least source of information (2.51%), 55.20% of the subjects were knowledgeable about timed intercourse while 30.40% had no knowledge about the relationship between menstruation and timed intercourse. However, 14.40% had erroneous knowledge about timed intercourse. Although menstrual hygiene is far above average in this group of students studied, they should be educated on more appropriate environmental friendly disposal methods for their used sanitary pads.

Keywords: Menstrual hygiene, Menstruation, Tertiary institution