International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health | March 2022 | Vol 9 | Issue 3 Page 1384 International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health Mor PN et al. Int J Community Med Public Health. 2022 Mar;9(3):1384-1393 http://www.ijcmph.com pISSN 2394-6032 | eISSN 2394-6040 Original Research Article Assessment of knowledge regarding menstruation and sanitary absorbents among young women of Haryana Preeti Nain Mor*, Vinod Kumari INTRODUCTION Menstruation is a ubiquitous and natural occurrence for females during their reproductive years. 1,2 Menstruation begins throughout the adolescent era, which is marked by significant physiological and emotional changes. 3 Females prepare and adjust themselves to control their menstrual bleeding in a safe and hygienic manner during their adolescence. 3,4 This is also a good moment for females to enroll in various contexts, such as high schools, in order to begin planning for their adult lives. However, due to lack of proper information, the majority of young girls enter puberty (maturity) without having prepared themselves. 5 Most women are hesitant to talk about "menses" since it is a societal taboo subject, and young girls may lack access to relevant information. 4,6 Even the limited information they obtain from religious institutions, classmates, and family members is frequently selective and laced with misconceptions. 7 Adolescent girls in rural areas typically have a lack of knowledge about menstruation, as well as traditional habits rooted in their socio-cultural environment. 8 Menarche brings with it a low degree of awareness, as well as unpleasant and chaotic events. 9-12 Due to societal prohibitions, rural ABSTRACT Background: Aim of the study was to access the knowledge regarding menstruation and sanitary products among young women from rural, urban and slum areas of Gurugram and Nuh. Methods: A comparative cross-sectional study was conducted among 240 young women of Gurugram and Nuh districts of Haryana, India with the help of a pre-designed semi-structured interview schedule. Data were analyzed using MS-Excel. Chi-square test, Pearson’s correlation and two sample t-test were used as statistical tools to analyze the data. Results: The overall level of knowledge regarding menstruation was found to be poor among 84.2 percent of women from Nuh and 49.2 percent from Gurugram. The findings of the study revealed that education of respondents and their mother, occupation of respondent, socio-economic status, mass media exposure and religion etc. were highly significantly associated with level of knowledge regarding menstruation. Knowledge regarding menstruation was found positively correlated with menstrual hygiene practices (r=0.545** in Gurugram and r=0.270* in Nuh) and with the general perceptions regarding menstruation (r=0.500** in Gurugram and r=0.256* in Nuh) respectively. A significant difference was observed in the knowledge regarding menstruation of women from rural, urban and slum areas of Gurugram and Nuh. Conclusions: Women still lacked of proper knowledge about this crucial phenomenon of their body which leads to various unhygienic menstrual practices and misconceptions about menstruation. Knowledge of young women can be improved through education interventions on menstruation and its importance in their life. Keywords: Adolescent, Knowledge, Menstruation, Menstrual hygiene practices, Sanitary pads Department of Sociology, CCS Haryana Agricultural University Hisar, Haryana, India Received: 04 January 2022 Accepted: 11 February 2022 *Correspondence: Dr. Preeti Nain Mor, E-mail: preetnain90@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20220700