Introduction: Every year, different batches of adolescent girls between the ages of 10-19 years experience menarche often unprepared to manage the menstruation hygienically. In Ghana, most girls enter adolescence when they are in basic schools, which make menstrual hygiene among girls in Junior High Schools very important. This study examined the knowledge, attitudes, and practices of menstrual hygiene management among both premenarcheal and post-menarcheal adolescent students in basic schools in the Yendi Municipality in Ghana. Methods: the study was cross sectional and used quantitative research methods. Semi-structured questionnaires were used to collect data from the female adolescent students aged 10-19 years. A total of 412 female adolescents from 9 basic schools in the Yendi Municipality participated in the study. Students were scored for their level of knowledge, attitude and practices of menstrual hygiene management. Results: The study found that although awareness of menstruation was universal, the Likert scores showed that 67.5% had adequate knowledge of menstrual hygiene management. About a tenth (13.6%) of the adolescent female students had a positive attitude towards menstrual hygiene management and a third (31.1%) practised good menstrual hygiene management. Older age and living with both parents were the main predictors of knowledge of menstrual hygiene management (P < 0.05). Similarly, age, staying with both parents, staying with mother only, access to funds and having adequate knowledge of menstruation were the main determinants of good menstrual hygiene management practice among adolescent girls in basic schools in Yendi Municipality (P < 0.05). Conclusions and recommendations: more than half of the respondents have adequate knowledge but their awareness and knowledge did not translate to positive attitude towards good menstrual hygiene management practices due to negative socio-cultural norms and practices among others that tend to stigmatise menstruation.

The aim of the study was to assess the prevalence of stress and anxiety, as well as the association that exists between stress/anxiety and sociodemographic characteristics, among pregnant women at the Tamale West Hospital in Ghana. This study was conducted among 154 pregnant women visiting the Tamale West hospital for antenatal care, from March to May, 2015. All participants were evaluated using a Self-designed semi-structured questionnaire for socio-demographic information, the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D) for stress assessment and State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) for assessment of anxiety. The response rate was 96.3%, with an age range of 17-42. Whereas 43.5% of the studied population were illiterate, 24.0% had attained basic education, 21.4% had attained secondary education while only 11.0% had attained tertiary education. Most of the studied participants were unemployed (57.8%), with a mean ± s. 1%). The mean ± s.d. of anxiety score as well as stress score from the studied population were 15.3±3.2 and 13.2±4.9 respectively. The prevalence of anxiety was 9.7% whiles that for stress among these studied participants was 28.6%. Higher proportion (26.6%) of educated women had anxiety disorders with a lower (21.9±10.8) mean gestation period being associated with anxiety disorders. Age was higher (28.1±5.8; p=0.0155) in women with pregnancy specific stress than in normal women (25.0±7.9). A higher proportion of women who were married (99.1%; 0.0097) were normal as compared to those who had pregnancy stress (90.9%). Mean number of births was seen to be higher among normal women (4.3±5.9; 0.0054) than those with stress (1.8±1.4). This study reiterates the rising levels of pregnancy specific stress and anxiety, with social and medical factors such as literacy levels, gestational period, age, marital status and parity playing major roles in the determination of pregnancy related stress and anxiety levels.

Purpose: The aim was to assess the awareness, attitude, knowledge level and practice of pregnant women on preconception care at the Tamale West Hospital Antenatal clinic in the Northern region of Ghana.Methodology:  This study used a descriptive cross-sectional design with a quantitative approach. A quota sampling procedure was used to arrive at 200 participants. The starting point was randomly selected and a systematic random sampling method was used to select the study participants. Simple random sampling using the lottery approach was used to select the participants for the study. The target population was women (literate and illiterate) within the age range of 16 and 40 years attending the Tamale West Hospital for antenatal care. The list of all the women who fell within the target population was obtained from the register of the unit. The inclusion criteria were pregnant women who visited the Tamale West Hospital within a month’s duration for antenatal care services. A semi-structured questionnaire which had both open-ended and close-ended questions was used to generate the data. Descriptive statistics which involves frequencies and percentages was used to represent both independent and dependent variables of the study. Close-ended responses were inputted using the Microsoft Office Excel 2016. Open-ended responses were compiled in relation to the objectives of the study. Other relevant outcomes were cross-tabulated using SPSS version 21.Results: Though 20.0% of the pregnant women had positive attitude towards preconception care, only 34.5% were aware of preconception care and 42.5% and 23.5% had poor and high knowledge levels on preconception care respectively. When the age group was cross-tabulated with awareness, the results showed no statistical significance between the two variables (χ2=9.1; p=0.58). However, there was an association between the educational status (Tertiary level) (χ2=49.6; p=0.01) and religious affiliation (Muslim) (χ2=43.3; p=0.01) of the respondents on awareness. Educational status (Tertiary level) (χ2=45.4; p=0.01) and religion (χ2=21.3; p=0.01) were found to influence knowledge statistically. In terms of overall attitude, only Muslim (χ2=4.12; p=0.04) statistically impacted on the study.Conclusion: Pregnant women who attend Antenatal clinic at Tamale West Hospital tended to have low level of awareness and poor knowledge, they have negative attitude towards preconception care services and seldom practice preconception care. There is the need for health care authorities to intensify awareness and implement preconception care policies.Recommendation: The present study demonstrated that there was a need to create awareness which can also increase the knowledge and practices of reproductive age women or couples. Hence, there is the need for health authorities to put together comprehensive preconception care policies for health institutions to abide by.

Purpose: The objective of this study was to assess the knowledge, attitudes and practices of basic school teachers on epilepsy in Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipality.Methodology: The study employed a descriptive cross-sectional design. Teachers were sampled from public basic schools in the municipality using the Yamane’s formula for known sampling frame to arrive at 226 participants for the study. The multi-stage and convenience sampling techniques were then used to sample teachers from five of the seven circuits with each circuit being allocated 62 teachers for the study. A semi-structured questionnaire which was used for the data collection was adapted from a study in Namibia. Chi squares and P-values were applied to determine the association between dependent and independent variables as confidence level set at 0.05. Data was analyzed with SPSS version 20.Results: The study found that majority of the teachers, 167 (73.9%) were knowledgeable about epilepsy and 191 (84.5%) had positive attitudes toward epilepsy. However, seizure management practices among the teachers were poor; only 44 (19.3%) of the teachers had appropriate seizure management practices. Notwithstanding, the religion of the teachers was found to be significantly associated with knowledge on epilepsy (p=0.041). The study found that marital status had an effect on attitudes toward epilepsy (p=0.004), whilst educational qualification was also significantly associated with attitudes toward epilepsy (p=0.001). The self-rated knowledge levels of the teachers, had no significant relationship with seizure management practices (p=0.508).Conclusion: Though majority of the teachers had adequate knowledge and positive attitudes toward epilepsy, it did not reflect in appropriate management of seizure.Recommendation: The Ghana Health Service should collaborate with the Ghana Education Service in training teachers on the management of seizure attacks.