A Study to Assess the Effectiveness of Structured Teaching Programme on Knowledge regarding Home Remedies on reducing Dysmenorrhea among Adolescent girls at St. Paul’s girls High school, Davangere.

V. Savitha¹, D. Roopa², K. M. Sridhara³

¹Assisstant Professor, Dept of OBG Nursing, S.S. Institute of Nursing Sciences, Davanagere, Karnataka.

²Lecturer, Dept. of OBG Nursing, S.S. Institute of Nursing Sciences, Davanagere, Karnataka.

³Lecturer, Dept of Child Health Nursing, S.S. Institute of Nursing Sciences, Davanagere, Karnataka

*Corresponding Author Email: vsavitha63@gmail.com

ABSTRACT:

Background: Many women find that some basic home remedies can help to relieve the dysmenorrhea. Dysmenorrhea had an adverse effect on school performance reflected in low concentration during classes, difficulties in accomplishing home work and school absenteeism. It also limited participation in sports and social activities.

Objectives: To evaluate the effectiveness of structured teaching programme on home remedies among adolescent girls.

Methods: An evaluative approach with pre experimental one group pretest posttest design was adopted in order to evaluate the effectiveness of structured teaching programme on knowledge regarding home remedies on reducing dysmenorrhea among 60 samples selected by stratified random sampling technique. Demographic proforma and structured closed ended knowledge questionnaire regarding home remedies on reducing Dysmenorrhea were used to gather pre and post data. A teaching programmeregarding home remedies on reducing Dysmenorrhea was provided for the subjects after the pretest. The post test was conducted on the seventh day and the data collected from the subjects were analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics.

Results: The data indicated the mean percentage of posttest (75%) knowledge score was higher than the mean percentage of pretest (57.14%) knowledge score. The data presented showsthat‘t’ value computed between mean pretest and posttest scores is statistically significant [t₍₅₉₎=16.15, table value t₍₅₉₎= 1.64 , P< 0.05]. Thisrevealed that there was a significant difference between the mean pretest and Posttest knowledge scores regarding home remedies on dysmenorrhea among adolescent girls.

Conclusion: The study concluded that the adolescent girls had less knowledge regarding home remedied on dysmenorrhea and the overall findings of the study indicated that there was an increase in the knowledge of subjects following the administration of structured teaching programme. This showed that structured teaching programme was effective in improving the knowledge of adolescent girls.

KEYWORDS: Home remedies, Dysmenorrhea, Adolescent girls, Structured Teaching Programme.

INTRODUCTION:

Sometimes women will experience painful cramping while she is having her menstrual period. When cramping and pain are intense and regular, she may be suffering from dysmenorrhea. It affects mostly women below 25yrs of age. For some it may disappear with age or after child birth but for some it continues till menopause. These painful conditions are classified as being either primary or secondary dysmenorrhea.

Period pains, or dysmenorrhea, affect 40-70% of women of reproductive age. For about one in 10 women the discomfort and pain is bad enough to interfere with their daily lives. The pain typically occurs in the lower abdomen and/or pelvis and can radiate to the back and along the thighs, lasting somewhere between 8 and 72 hours.

It can occur before or during menstruation or both. Headaches, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting may accompany it¹.

Some women prefer to stick with natural home remedies to treat menstrual pain as often as possible. Simple home remedies can be very effective in reducing or eliminating menstrual cramps. Many women find that some basic home remedies can help to relieve the dysmenorrhea. To help in the treatment of dysmenorrhea there are several nutritional supplements available. Most popular among them are Mg, Zn, Vit.E and vit.B₁.Also using a hot bag or a heating pad helps reduce the cramps and the pain especially if one is using over the counter medicines⁴. Since each woman is different there are some who benefit from exercising while there are others from resting. It may important to visit doctor if the pain is unbearable to determine a suitable action plan and also if the pain is a recurring month after month.

NEED FOR THE STUDY:

Dysmenorrhea is a painful menstruation. It is classified as either primary or secondary. Primary dysmenorrhea is occurring usually in the year of the first menstrual period. The pain tends to decrease with age and every often resolves after child birth. Secondary dysmenorrhea is due to any other conditions. The primary dysmenorrhea is most common in adolescents. There is a wide variation in the estimate of dysmenorrhea from studies around the world reporting a range between 28% and 71.7%and in India the prevalence of dysmenorrhea is 78.2%².

The prevalence of menstrual symptoms are tiredness (47.9%), backache (38.3%), anger (38.4%). The prevalence of dysmenorrhea in adolescent girls is found to be 79.67%⁵. Some individual studies showed that dysmenorrhea adversely affected the student’s daily activities. Dysmenorrhea had an adverse effect on school performance reflected in low concentration during classes, difficulties in accomplishing home work and school absenteeism. It also limited participation in sports and social activities³.

PROBLEM STATEMENT:

A study to assess the effectiveness of structured teaching programme on knowledge regarding home remedies on reducing dysmenorrhea among adolescent girls at St. Paul’s girls high school, Davangere.

OBJECTIVES:

1. To evaluate the effectiveness of structured teaching programme on home remedies among adolescent girls in terms of pre test and post test scores.

2. To find out an association between pre test knowledge scores with the selected socio demographic Variables.

HYPOTHESIS:

H1-There will be a significant difference in the level of knowledge of adolescent girls who have received structured teaching programme on home remedies on reducing dysmenorrhea

H2-There will be an association between pretest knowledge scores with the selected socio demographic variables.

MATERIAL AND METHOD:

The pre-experimental; one group pre-test post-test research design was adopted for the study. The study was conducted at St. Paul’s girl’s high school, Davangere. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select 60 adolescent girls for the study. A demographic proforma to gather the baseline data and structured closed ended knowledge questionnaire about students’ knowledge regarding home remedies to relieve Dysmenorrhea was developed to collect the data. The multiple choice questions in the tool was sectionalized into knowledge related to menstrual cycle, and causes, clinical manifestations, treatment and home remedies regarding Dysmenorrhea. Each item has four options with one correct response. The maximum possible score was 30 and the minimum score was 0. The score was categorized arbitrarily as <50% (Inadequate), 51-75% (Moderate) and >75% (Adequate). A structured teaching programme regarding home remedies on reducing dysmenorrhea was developed to guide the researcher to provide information regarding home remedies on Dysmenorrhea for the adolescent girls. Subjects were asked to participate in the study after self-introduction by the investigator. The subjects were informed the purpose of the study and the consent was taken from them. Pretest was administered to them using demographic proforma and questionnaire on day 1 followed by teaching programme. The teaching was carried out in the school and the duration of the teaching was 45 minutes. The method of instruction adopted was lecture cum discussion using LCD and other audio visual aids. Post test was conducted using the same questionnaire on the 7^th day of teaching. Both descriptive and inferential statistics was used to complete the data.

Figure1: The bar diagram shows distribution of subjects based on pretest and posttest knowledge scores regarding home remedies of dysmenorrhea.

RESULTS:

Demographic data was analyzed using frequency and percentage. Frequencies, percentage, mean, median, mean percentage and standard deviation was used to determine the knowledge score. The ‘t’ value was computed to show the effectiveness of teaching programme and chi square test was done to determine the association between the pretest knowledge of students and demographic variables.

Findings related to demographic data:

The demographic information of the sample revealed that the entire sample 34 (56.7%) belong to the age group of 12-14yrs, 48 (80%) belong to Hindu religion, 34 (56.7%) were from nuclear family and 31 (51.7%) are vegetarians.

Findings related to pre and post knowledge scores:

The data showed that, in the pretest majority of adolescent girls (73.3%) had moderate knowledge, (1.7%) had adequate knowledge, and (25%) had inadequate knowledge regarding home remedies on dysmenorrhea. But in the post test majority of adolescent girls (56.6%) had adequate knowledge, (41.6%) had moderate knowledge and (1.8%) had inadequate knowledge.

Findings related to effectiveness of structured teaching programme:

Table 1: Distribution of subjects on paired‘t’ test between pretest and posttest knowledge scores regarding home remedies of dysmenorrhea. n=60

Domain	Mean	SD	Mean %	Paired ‘t’ test
Pre test	12.3	2.9	57.14	16.15*
Post test	21.8	4.5	75	16.15*

*Significant at 5% level; t (0.05, 59 df) =1.64

The data presented in Table 1 shows that ‘t’ value computed between mean pretest and post test scores is statistically significant [t₍₅₉₎=16.15, table value t₍₅₉₎= 1.64, P< 0.05]. It shows that there was a significant difference between the mean pretest and Post test knowledge scores regarding home remedies on dysmenorrhea among adolescent girls. The data indicated the mean percentage of post test (75%) knowledge score was higher than the mean percentage of pretest (57.14%) knowledge score. This showed that the structured teaching programme on home remedies on dysmenorrhea was effective in improving the knowledge of adolescent girls.

Findings related to association between pretest knowledge scores of adolescent girls with selected demographic variables

The findings demonstrated that there was no significant association between pretest knowledge scores with selected demographic variables. It was interpreted that the pretest knowledge scores regarding home remedies on dysmenorrhea were not influenced by the demographic variables.

DISCUSSION:

Today many adolescent girls have their activity restricted due to dysmenorrhea. Research studies shows that various home remedies can reduce dysmenorrhea.

The findings of the study revealed that in the pretest majority of adolescent girls (73.3%) had moderate knowledge, (1.7%) had adequate knowledge, and (25%) had inadequate knowledge regarding home remedies on dysmenorrhea. But in the post test majority of adolescent girls (56.6%) had adequate knowledge, (41.6%) had moderate knowledge and (1.8%) had inadequate knowledge.

The findings of the study revealed that there was a significant difference between the mean pretest and Posttest knowledge scores. The data indicated the mean percentage of posttest (75%) knowledge score was higher than the mean percentage of pretest (57.14%) knowledge score. This showed that the structured teaching programme on home remedies on dysmenorrhea was effective in improving the knowledge of adolescent girls.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

On the basis of findings of the study, it is recommended that:

1. The study can be replicated on a large sample.

2. A similar study can be conducted on different group of subjects.

3. An observational study can be conducted in the actual practice for a period of time.

4. An experimental study can be conducted with control group.

5. A comparative study can be carried out to assess the knowledge and prevalence regarding management of dysmenorrhea between home remedies and allopathic medicines among adolescent girls.

CONCLUSION:

The finding of this study supports to conduct the health education to increase the knowledge of the adolescent girls regarding Dysmenorrhea. The study has proved that the adolescent girls have a remarkable increase in the knowledge when compared to their previous knowledge, prior to the implementation of the Structured Teaching Programme. Thus for the future outlook there is a need to improve their knowledge by conducting the Structured Teaching Programme regarding home remedies in reducing Dysmenorrhea.

REFERENCE:

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3. Akin MD, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, volume 97, issue 3, March 2001, page 343-349, ACOG and Tippincott Publications.

4. B. Urnett MA, Anta OV, Black. et al Prevalence of primary Dysmenorrhoea in Canada. J Obstetgynaecol Can.2005;27:765-770(Pubmed.com)

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