Sociodemographic and access-related correlates of sanitary pads among college students in Lucknow during Covid19

  1. Surbhi Garg
  2. Ruqayya Alvi
  3. Suman Gupta
  4. Absar Ahmad

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Abstract

Introduction

Sanitary napkin is an essential aspect of the Menstrual management materials for women and adolescent girls between menarche and menopause. Despite being an important issue concerning women and girls in the menstruating age group, access to menstrual hygiene products neglected during the COVID19 pandemic. Further, there is no evidence of the practice of menstrual hygiene products in Indian settings during this period. This paper investigates the prevalence of socio-demographic correlations of access to sanitary napkins among college students in Lucknow.

Methods

An online retrospective cross-sectional survey was conducted in Lucknow in September 2020. In total, 1439 participants took part in the survey. After removing 55 participants, those quit the survey by clicking on the disagree button and 13 were not satisfying inclusion criteria. So the final samples were 1371, which were included in the analysis. Students of UG and PG currently studying in colleges in the Lucknow were eligible to participate. The data collection was anonymous. Responses were analysed using descriptive and bivariate logistic regression.

Results

In this study, 1371 students were included, making a response rate of 96.2 percent. Nearly 12.5 percent of students reported about difficulty encountered during the lockdown. Muslims, Father education illiterate or upto12th, father occupation as farmer, monthly salary less than 25 thousand, residence as rural, and history of reusable clothes were more likely to face problems to access sanitary pads during the lockdown in Lucknow (P < .05).

Conclusions

During COVID-19 lockdown, about 12.5 % of girls were dependent on either locally available resources as absorbents during menstruation or paid more to access in Lucknow. Because of the lockdown, many people have lost their livelihood. More than ever, economically low-income families are reluctant to spend on sanitary pads, which is why few college girls were going back to their previous handling periods by using rags.

Highlights

  • The prevalence of menstrual management products during Covid19 were unknown

  • Women and Adolescents in India suffer the shortages of Sanitary napkin during lockdown

  • Prevalence of access to sanitary pads should emphasis different focal points

Article activity feed

  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.10.14.20210815: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIACUC: Ethical approval: This work was done in collaboration of Shri Gurunanak Girls Degree College, Lucknow and Career Institute of Medical Sciences and Hospital, Lucknow. Ethical approval for this research was obtained from the Institutional Review Committee of Career Institute of Medical Sciences and Hospital (Ref: PHARMA/SEP/2020/02), Lucknow, India.
    Consent: Participants who gave consent to participate in the survey would click the ‘Agree’ button and then be directed to complete the self-administered questionnaire.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Measures: Statistical analysis: For this study, the collected data were analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), version 25.
    Statistical Package for the Social Sciences
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Strength and limitations of the study: The study tried to evaluate the difficulties to access sanitary pads during lockdown by online survey and tried to cover all types of students. However, this study has a limitation. First, the study design’s cross-sectional nature might not show the cause and effect relationships between study variables. Second, this study follows only quantitative data collection, and mixed approaches do not triangulate it. Third, the study lacks random sampling, which leads the statistical confidence and margin of error.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.10.14.20210815v1 on medRxiv