Determination of the Motherly Reactions to Adolescents' Experience of Menarche

Abstract 

Objectives

The study was conducted to identify mothers' reaction to adolescent girls' experience of menarche.

Methods

This retrospective and descriptive study was conducted in the Nursing School and Erzurum Health School of Atatürk University in Erzurum, Turkey, in October 2008. The study comprised 191 first-year students. The data were collected via a questionnaire prepared by the researchers. The data were evaluated using SPSS software, using percentage, arithmetical average, and standard deviation.

Results

The average age of the students was 18.82 ± 1.1 years. A total of 92.1% of students had a democratic family structure. It was also determined that the age of the mother when the student experienced menarche was generally 30–39 years (71.7%). For 48.2 % of the students, menarche occurred at 12–13 years of age; 52.9% of them found menarche a normal event and 69.1% of them first reported their experience of menarche to their mothers. Mothers' reactions to their daughters' experience of menarche largely consisted of giving information about what to do in this period.

Conclusions

It was determined in this study that the extent to which mothers showed reactions of happiness to their daughters' experience of menarche is rather low, but the rate of mothers telling their daughters what to do in this period was quite high.

Key Words: Menarche, Female adolescents, Motherly reactions