Female Adolescents' Preparations, Knowledge, and Emotional Response toward Menarche: A Preliminary Study.

Emotional response toward menarche is a psychological problem for female adolescents. In addition menarche is considered taboo and embarrassing by female adolescents. Many female adolescents have a negative feeling and do not prepare for menarche. The purpose of this paper is to identify female adolescents' preparation and emotional response toward menarche. This study used a qualitative method including focus group discussion (FGD) and in-depth interview. FGD was carried out with five female adolescents in a school setting about female adolescents' preparations and emotional response toward menarche. The participants were female adolescent students who had not entered menarche yet. Some teachers were also interviewed as key persons. The results of this study indicate that female adolesents do not prepare for menarche. The participants did not have adequate knowledge and felt ashamed and worried about menarche. This study recommended the use of reproductive health education related to menarcheal preparations in school and community settings to prepare female adolescents to confidently face menarche. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]