Knowledge and Information on Psychological, Physiological and Gynaecological Problems Among Adolescent Schoolgirls of Eastern India

BACKGROUND: Sex education aims to reduce the risks of potentially negative outcome from sexual behavior such as fear and stigma of menstruation, unwanted and unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections including HIV. Hence, this study was conducted to determine sex education knowledge level of school going adolescents in semi urban area of Midnapore, West Bengal, India. METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in two selected premier secondary school of girls in the Midnapore Town from September - October 2007. A total of 521 adolescent aged 10–19 years were selected randomly from two secondary schools of girls. However, schools were selected purposively. All information was collected by using open-ended pre-tested questionnaire. RESULTS: Of the total subjects 94.2% of them were in the age of 13–16 years. Nearly, 94% respondents reported their age at menarche and maximum i.e. 54% respondents experienced in the age of 11 – 13 years. It was observed that 18%, 60.7% and 21.3% of the respondents had good knowledge, moderate or some knowledge and very poor knowledge of puberty, pubertal problems and their prevention. Thirty three percent said that they had faced one or some other kind of physical problems and out of them 60% indicated that they had visited to a doctor for their problems. The suffering of any gynecological problems had 2.48 (95% CI: 1.42 – 4.36) and 1.94 (95% CI: 1.01 – 3.73) times greater among subjects with little or some knowledge and minimum or no knowledge compare to subjects with good knowledge of sex education. CONCLUSION: Thus, the results show that not only knowledge regarding sex education was poor among the subjects but also their knowledge regarding sexual infections including AIDS was not satisfactory. School based sex education programs are particularly good at providing information, skills development and attitude clarification in more formal way through lesson within the curriculum. Therefore, appropriate sex education program should be initiated from the adolescence to prevent health hazards.