| dc.description.abstract | Menarcheal age marks the transition from girlhood to adulthood. It is a sensitive reproductive health indicator which reflects the public health status of a population. Its early onset is associated with diseases like breast cancer, diabetes and hypertension, and late onset with anxiety and osteoporosis. Menarcheal studies are scarce in Bushenyi District; hence this study was conducted to determine the menarcheal age pattern among schoolgirls in the District. The hypothesis tested was “presence of fathers and other men in households has no influence on menarche timing among the study population”. Permission to conduct this research was obtained from the Directorate of Postgraduate Studies, Research, Grants and Publications of Bishop Stuart University, Mbarara. Permission was also obtained from Head Teachers of schools that participated. A cross-sectional survey was conducted where semi-structured questionnaires were administered to 445 randomly selected Bushenyi secondary school girls. Menarcheal age was obtained through the “status quo method”. Stata 13.1 was used for descriptive statistics, two-tailed t-test and regression analyses on the data obtained. Respondents’ mean biological age was 15.08 ± 1.62 years. Post-menarcheal respondents had significantly higher mean weight, height and body mass index (p < 0.001). Earliest age at menarche was eight years and latest was at 17 years, while the mean menarcheal age (MMA) was 13.14 ± 1.34 years. Prevalence rates of early menarche and primary amenorrhoea were 2.70% and 2.92% respectively. Menarcheal age was strongly associated with biological age, weight, type of residence and handedness (p <0.05). The null hypothesis that “presence of fathers and other men have no influence on menarche timing among the study population” could not be accepted because menarche timing had significant association (p <0.05) with presence of fathers and other men in households. Based on the study outcome, it is recommended that appropriate policy makers should facilitate integration of menstrual information into health education programmes and disseminated widely. Also, more extensive menarcheal research should be done to generate national menarcheal age data. | en_US |
