Reproductive Morbidity and its Treatment Seeking among Adolescent Girls from a Nationwide Survey, India

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 10:23:53 +0000

Background: India constitutes 242 million adolescents and 116 million
are girls. Considering the quantum of this demographic, an adequate
literature exists on menstrual health and hygiene for adolescent girls,
but studies on reproductive morbidities are very limited. The present
study aims to examine the prevalence of reproductive morbidities,
its treatment-seeking behavior, and its associated factors among
adolescent girls.
Methods: Primary data was collected from 16 major states of India,
using cross-sectional survey design. In total, data collected from 6,715
adolescent girls.
Results: Overall, the prevalence of reproductive morbidities was 39%
among surveyed adolescent girls. A higher proportion of girls reported
severe abdominal pain (24%), followed by itching (16%) and bad odor
(12%), all along with discharge. Regression analysis suggests that girls
experiencing irregular menstruation, from late adolescent age, having
experience of menstrual disorder, girls from urban areas and from higher
wealth quintile were more likely to report reproductive morbidities.
Only about one-third of girls reported seeking treatment. The odds of
treatment seeking suggest that those who previously sought treatment
for menstrual disorder and girls from urban areas were more likely to
seek treatment. Private clinics/doctors (12%), and medical shops (10%),
followed by public health personnel/facilities (only 6%) of the girls
were the preferred source of treatment for reproductive morbidities.
Conclusion: The findings of the study highlight the urgent need for an
enabling environment for early identification and access to treatment
services for reproductive morbidities. A trained and adequate number
of peer educators may accelerate health education and generate
demand for healthcare services.

How to cite this article:
Chokhandre P K, Vatavati S R, Pundappanavar
B I, Hallad J S. Reproductive morbidity and its
treatment seeking among Adolescent Girls from a
nationwide survey, India. Ind J Youth Adol Health.
2024;11(4):1-9.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.24321/2349.2880.202408

Relationship between Emotions and Moods during Menstruation and Development of Behavioural and Personality Traits among Adolescent Girls

Thu, 27 Nov 2025 10:35:08 +0000

Emotions and moods are great influencers of individuals’ attitude towards self and others. Development of attitude towards both - self and others is important. Many a times, we forget, that when we are exhibiting a negative attitude towards others, we are also simultaneously affecting our own selves also and the response comes in the form of varying degrees of feelings and thinking and the response driven out from there affecting decision making, behaviour, and this again impacting development of behavioural and personality traits which could possibly over a period of time could become our behaviour and personality. Emotions giving rise to feelings – positive and negative are always in a mix, not always negative or positive. Therefore, affect, emotions and moods are interrelated. Affect relates to broad range of feelings, including both emotions and moods, and emotions are intense, discrete and short-lived feeling experiences caused by specific events. Menstruation in this exploratory study refers to as generating varying degrees of feelings and moods. Mood swings that led to the culmination of linking menstruation with development of behavioural and personality traits and this paper brings out dozens of emotions – anger, contempt, enthusiasm, envy, fear, frustration, disappointment, embarrassment, disgust, happiness, hate, hope, jealousy joy, love, pride, surprise, sadness, bore, content and list can be added. A direct consequence of these emotions, if they continue and persist, and repetitively occur, may lead to development of varying types of behavioural processes eventually taking the shape of individuals behaviour and personality traits. This paper, based on the phenomenological research carried out qualitatively has unfolded realities about adolescent girls undergoing menstruation amidst several cultural dimensions to disclosures and / non-disclosure of the event, discovered representation of the menstrual event in a girl and / women cannot be represented on faces, but at the same time the consequential effect of continuing and persisting of various negative and positive emotions transform into various positive and negative traits depending on what kind of feelings – negative or positive that came up during menstruation as it recurs every month. The study proceeded with the menstrual stories of adolescent girls and unfolded from the story, various episodes, and discovering the behavioural processes that could have happened resulted in gradually development of behavioural and personality traits – negative, positive and also high potential, presented here in this paper.

Indian Journal of Youth and Adolescent Health (E-ISSN: 2349-2880)

Reproductive Morbidity and its Treatment Seeking among Adolescent Girls from a Nationwide Survey, India

Relationship between Emotions and Moods during Menstruation and Development of Behavioural and Personality Traits among Adolescent Girls