A cross-sectional study was carried out in North
Eastern India in the seven blocks of East Khasi Hill district of Meghalaya
from June 2005 to January 2006. Recalled age at menarche and
socio-demographic characteristics were obtained from 360 adolescent girls
through a pretested structured schedule. The age at menarche was found to
be 12.1 years by probit analysis and 13.2 years by recall method. Mean age
at menarche of Khasi girls is higher than that of several other
populations of the world: 13.1 years and 12.9 years in southern England
and North-West England, respectively [4], and 12.5 years in United States
[5]. However, some of the studies among other populations of India show a
similar trend of higher mean menarcheal age: 13.88 years in urban Andhra
Pradesh [6] and 13.85 years in rural Jammu [7], while a lower age at
menarche (12.3 years) among Bengali girls of North Kolkota was reported by
Banerjee, et al. [1]. This indicates towards an early age at
menarche among girls of eastern region of India than rest of India. Rural
Khasi girls had a lower age at menarche (13.01±0.73) as compared to their
urban counterparts (13.40±0.96). The present study also found
significantly higher mean age at menarche among girls with high
educational status of parents as well as subjects own educational level.
No statistically significant difference was observed in the mean age at
menarche among various subgroups of family income and size of family.
However, girls belonging to small family size (having 1 or 2 children)
reported early menarche than girls belonging to larger family (having more
than 6 children). This suggests early menarche is favoured by the higher
living standards of the small families. Further study in a larger
population would help to evaluate and confirm the findings of the present
study.
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