THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN NUTRITIONAL STATUS AND AGE AT MENARCHE IN THE FIFTH AND SIXTH-GRADE STUDENTS OF SDN PABEAN 1 SEDATI, SIDOARJO

Abstract

In the last decade, age at menarche comes earlier. The factors affecting the menarche are genetics, nutritional status, and environment. Therefore, this research was purposed to find out the relationship between nutritional status and age at menarche in the fifth and sixth-grade students of SDN Pabean 1 Sedati, Sidoarjo. This analytic research was done using cross sectional approach. The population involved the students having menarche in the last two months, totally 28 people. Whilst, 26 respondents were taken as the samples by using probability sampling in which simple random sampling technique was used. The independent variable was nutritional status, whereas the dependent one was age at menarche. The instruments used in this research were questionnaire and observation sheet. Moreover, the data were analyzed by using Spearman’s Rank test with the significance level α = 0.05. The result of research showed that nearly half of the respondents (46.2%) had normal nutritional status, whereas most of them (53.8%) had menarche at normal age. Moreover, the result of Spearman’s Rank test showed that p = (0.018) < α = (0.05) so that H0 was rejected illustrating that there was a relationship between nutritional status and age at menarche. In conclusion, the higher nutritional status affects the normal age at menarche. Hence, the health workers are expected to develop cooperation with schools in order to provide reproductive health education for adolescents as well as to integrate it into the curriculum in the fifth and sixth grade.