Study of Menstrual Attitudes and Knowledge among Postmenarcheal Students, in Urmia, North West of Iran

Background Menstruation cycle is a normal physiological process that is managed differently according to various social and cultural understandings. The aim of this study was to determine the relationship between  attitude and knowledge of female students about menstruation cycle in Urmia city, Iran. Methods and materials In this descriptive cross-sectional study that conducted on 350 female students from second grade of high school girls in the Urmia city who were selected using multistage sampling of urban areas. The data collection instrument was a questionaire including personal and demographic information, knowledge and attitude questions about menstruation cycle that was completed by researcher. The data were analyzed using SPSS version 17.0 software. Results The mean age of students and mean age of the first menstruation were 15.96± 0.86 and 12.29±1.04 years old, respectively. The results showed that there was a significant relationship between knowledge and attitude, negative feelings, living with menstruation, openness about menstruation and menstrual symptoms (P<0.05); this means that by increasing the knowledge, attitudes have increased in the mentioned fields; but there was no statistically significant relationship between knowledge, and positive feelings, acceptance of menarche and acceptance of the menstruation (P> 0.05). Conclusion  The menstrual attitude of girl students can be improved by increasing the menstrual knowledge of them with the help of mothers and teachers.

Keywords:

adolescent girls , Attitude , Iran , Menstruation , Knowledge