Insights into Menstruation: A Qualitative Exploration among School going Adolescent Boys of Central India

Although from the beginning of first human life, menstruation has been there; still it has never been discussed as openly as it should have been. There have been some religious festivals where menstruation is celebrated, yet menstruation has always been a topic of closed-door discussion. It is a "women's-topic." Educated Indian men feel uncomfortable during conversations on menstruation. They tend to avoid such discussions. To know what goes wrong from the beginning of an adolescent boy's life that leads to such awkwardness surrounding the topic of menstruation, this qualitative study was designed.

Five Focused group discussions (FGDs) were conducted among adolescent boys of a co-ed school. Methodological framework of content analysis was employed to obtain themes and sub-themes. For this inductive coding was performed.

A total of 50 male students of 9^th class were included in the study with mean age of 13.5 years. Four themes and eight sub-themes emerged from the FGDs. One interesting finding was that some of the participants acquired knowledge from television advertisements and movies. Most of them did not perceive menstruation as a normal phenomenon and considered it a diseased state or a sin. Most of the boys wanted that menstruation be taught to them.

Overall, there is a lack of perception regarding menstruation among the school going adolescents. The source of information is very informal and lacks clarity. Providing proper sex education is the way forward.