A study to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices regarding use of sanitary napkin vending machine and incinerator among female students of selected govt. schools and colleges of district faridkot

Introduction: Around the world, women have developed their own personal strategies to cope with menstruation. The issue of menstrual hygiene is inadequately acknowledged and has not received proper attention. Use of sanitary pads is essential practices to keep menstrual hygiene. Government launched ‘Amodini (happy girl child) Menstrual Health and Hygiene Programme’ on May 28, 2016. Under this project sanitary napkin vending machine and incinerator were installed in government schools and colleges. The project aimed at breaking menstrual taboos that jeopardize the health of millions of girls every day. Aim: To assess the knowledge, attitude and practices regarding use of sanitary napkin vending machine and incinerator among female students of selected govt. schools and colleges of district Faridkot. Materials and Methods: Descriptive study with Non-Experimental research design was conducted. 500 study subjects were chosen by convenience sampling. Structured Questionnaire, 5-point Likert Scale and Self-reported checklist were used to assess the knowledge, attitude and practices regarding sanitary napkin vending machine and incinerator. Results: The results revealed that more than half i.e. 57.6% female students had adequate knowledge. 99.2% of female students had positive attitude and 0.8% had negative attitude. Practice of using sanitary napkin vending machine and incinerator was found to be as low as 2.8%. Majority of the study subjects did not use these machines. Conclusion: Hence it can be concluded that ‘Amodini Project’ did not achieve the desired goals of menstrual hygiene and safe disposal of menstrual waste.