Awareness about Reproductive Health Issues among the Adolescent Girls in a Rural Area of Bangladesh

Authors

  • Nasreen Akther Associate Professor (c.c), Dept. of Community Medicine, Ibn Sina Medical College, Dhaka, Bangladesh
  • Meherunnessa Begum Associate Professor (c.c), Dept. of Community Medicine, Ibn Sina Medical College, Dhaka, Bangladesh
  • Tamanna Tasmin Assistant Professor, Dept. of Forensic Medicine, Ibn Sina Medical College, Dhaka, Bangladesh
  • Khondoker Saif Imtiaz Associate Professor & Head, Dept. of Community Medicine, CARe Medical College, Dhaka, Bangladesh
  • Ahmed Nawsher Alam Principal Scientifi Offir, Institute of Epidemiology, Disease Control and Research (IEDCR), Dhaka, Bangladesh
  • Asma Begum Professor (c.c) & Head, Dept. ofForensic Medicine, Ibn Sina Medical College, Dhaka, Bangladesh
  • Nadia Begum Associate Professor, Dept. of Community Medicine, Z.H. Shikder Women’s Medical College, Dhaka, Bangladesh

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3329/bjms.v19i3.45876

Keywords:

Awareness; Reproductive health issues; Adolescent girls; Bangladesh

Abstract

Background: In Bangladesh there is a scarcity of data on the degree of knowledge amongadolescents about reproductive health.

Objective: To assess the awareness about reproductivehealth issues among adolescent girls in a rural area of Bangladesh.

Materials and method: Thisdescriptive type of cross sectional study was conducted among 148 adolescent girls who wereselected purposively at PurbaChandara village of Kaliakairthana of Shafipurupazilla of Gazipurdistrict in Bangladesh. A pre-tested semi structured questionnaire was used to collect data byface to face interview.

Results: Most of the respondents (76.35%) were within the age group of15-19 years. The average age of their menarche was 14 years. Majority of the respondents 136(91.89%) had history of menstruation and 97 (65.54%) mentioned the duration of menstrualcycle > 7 days. Regarding the hygienic practice during menstruation, majority of them (68.24%)were unhygienic. About knowledge on age at marriage, 131 (88.51%) reportedly mentionedcorrect answer that marriage age is 18 years or more for girls. Regarding the knowledge onfamily planning and family planning methods, most of them (41.89%) had no knowledge.About the infection of reproductive tract, 87 (58.78%) had no knowledge and about half of therespondents (92; 56.79%) had no knowledge about symptoms of STDs.

Conclusion: it is ourresponsibility to improve the condition of adolescent girls by giving clear and correct knowledgeon reproductive health which will help them to maintain a good and sound reproductive healthin future.

Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science Vol.19(3) 2020 p.567-574

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.
Abstract
446
PDF
544

Downloads

Published

2020-03-10

How to Cite

Akther, N., Begum, M., Tasmin, T., Imtiaz, K. S., Alam, A. N., Begum, A., & Begum, N. (2020). Awareness about Reproductive Health Issues among the Adolescent Girls in a Rural Area of Bangladesh. Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science, 19(3), 567–574. https://doi.org/10.3329/bjms.v19i3.45876

Issue

Vol. 19 No. 3 (2020)

Section

Original Articles

License

Authors who publish in the Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science agree to the following terms that:

  1. Authors retain copyright and grant Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science the right of first publication of the work.

  2. Creative Commons Licence
    Articles in Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License CC BY-4.0.This license permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
  3. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  4. Authors are permitted to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as greater citation of published work.