Educational videos vs interactive e-modules: adolescents' menstrual hygiene knowledge, attitudes, and practices

Poor menstrual hygiene knowledge and practices among adolescent girls remain a major public health concern in resource-limited settings, where access to comprehensive reproductive health education is often limited.

To evaluate the effectiveness of interactive e-modules against educational videos in improving menstrual hygiene knowledge, attitudes, and practices among adolescent females.

A quasi-experimental pretest-posttest two-group design was conducted at a public junior high school in the Pulau Punjung District of Indonesia. Seventy adolescent girls were recruited via purposive selection and assigned to either an interactive e-module group or a video group (n=35 each group). Knowledge, attitudes, and practices were assessed utilizing validated questionnaires. The data analysis comprised the Wilcoxon signed-rank test and the Mann-Whitney U test, with effectiveness evaluated by N-gain scores.

Both interventions led to substantial improvements in knowledge, attitudes, and practices (P<.001). The interactive e-module demonstrated greater effectiveness than the video intervention across all areas, including knowledge (P<.001), attitudes (P=.022), and practices (P<.001). Elevated N-gain scores further validated the interactive e-module's superiority.

Interactive e-modules surpass educational videos in enhancing menstrual hygiene knowledge, attitudes, and practices among adolescent girls, suggesting that they may be a preferred strategy for delivering menstrual health education in schools and other adolescent health programs.