Gamification for pubertal and menstrual health education in adolescent girls: Study protocol

Adolescents' lack of awareness regarding puberty provides the ground for seeking information from unreliable sources, which poses the greatest challenge for adolescents. An educational approach for adolescents and characterized by creativity is gamification. Students' engagement is essential for changes in attitudes and behavior. Therefore, the present study will be conducted with the aim of determining knowledge and practice of puberty and menstrual health in adolescent girls and the effectiveness of gamification for pubertal and menstrual health education in adolescent girls.

This study has two stages. The first stage is a cross-sectional study with stratified random sampling method to evaluate the knowledge and practice of puberty health among 300 female students (12-13 years old) in Babol. The second stage is an interventional study. At this stage, 90 students who have scored less than 85 from the puberty knowledge, and practice questionnaire will be selected by simple random sampling and then assigned to two groups of gamification and control. Students in the intervention group will receive the necessary education about puberty and menstrual health by gamification method once a week for four weeks. The data will be analyzed by SPSS software version 25. The Chi-square test, repeated measures ANOVA, and ANCOVA test will be used in this study.

The gamification method might be effective in improving adolescents' puberty and menstrual health knowledge and practice. The insights derived from this research will be valuable for policymakers in enhancing their planning strategies. As adolescents play a crucial role as the future architects of society, allocating resources and time to their education ensures the well-being and vitality of the community.