Menstrual health education: school health curriculum topics by grade level recommended by specialized medical professionals in menstrual health clinics.

Abstract

Study objective: Evidence-based menstrual health education is not mandated in any U.S. state or territory. Aspects of normal and abnormal menstruation impact quality of life and educational engagement, but many youth are not prepared to know when to seek medical help. We sought to determine which topics should be included in a 3^rd through 8^th grade school-based menstrual health curriculum.

Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional online survey of medical professionals who care for patients with menstrual problems. We asked participants to indicate the top three menstrual health topics by grade and we compared the most common responses by year. We also solicited general comments about curriculum content.

Results: Surveys from 55 medical professionals met criteria for analysis. The most frequent topics to be selected were normal and abnormal menstruation, reproductive anatomy, puberty timeline, and menstrual products. A majority recommended the topics of puberty timeline (38, 69.1%) and reproductive anatomy (34, 61.8%) for 3^rd grade, introducing normal menstruation (31, 56.4%) and menstrual products (24, 46.3%) in 4^th grade, and abnormal menstruation (27, 49.1%) in 6^th grade. More complex topics such as world cultures around menstruation (14, 25.5%) and period poverty (11, 20.0%) were preferred for 8^th grade. Many providers emphasized the importance of teaching normal versus abnormal menstruation in a school health curriculum.

Conclusion: Medical professionals provide recommendations for a school-based menstrual health curriculum that introduces topics at developmentally appropriate ages from a medical perspective, teaches basic menstrual symptom management, and instructs on warning signs for abnormal menstruation.