The effect of gender-role orientation on attitudes towards menstruation in a sample of female university students

Abstract

Objective: To examine the effect of gender role orientation on attitudes towards menstruation in a sample of Iranian female students of medicalsciences.Material and Methods: Three hundred female university students (94%; response rate: 282) were enrolled in the study via stratified randomsampling. Data were collected using a demographic questionnaire, the Menstrual Attitude Questionnaire (MAQ), and the short version of the BemSex Role Inventory (BSRI). Data were analyzed using SPSS v.18. Analyses were performed using the Kruskal-Wallis test and the Mann-WhitneyU test.Results: The mean scores of the MAQ subscales ranged from 3.7±1.35 to 5.6±1.3, indicating that most of the respondents had natural tomoderate attitudes toward menstruation. When participants were classified into one of four gender-role categories of BSRI, the results showedthat the undifferentiated group with 33.7% was higher than other gender-role groups. The undifferentiated group was significantly less likely thanthe other groups to perceive “menstruation as a natural event”.Conclusion: The study shows an association between gender-role orientation and attitudes toward menstruation in female university students.However, further research is still necessary in this issue. (J Turk Ger Gynecol Assoc 2019; 20: 138-41)