Hello, everyone, and welcome to my research poster. My name is Lauren Ivelte, and I'm a fourth-year medical student at Kansas City University. Today, I will be presenting my research on the emotional and social impacts of menstrual practices on women in rural Guatemala. This project is very near to my heart, and I'm excited to share it with all of you. In the United States, there have been some studies conducted that examine the attitudes and impact of menstruation on women. Similar research has been done abroad, exploring menstrual practices and interventions in developing countries, mainly Kenya. These studies done on menstrual health have shed light on different factors that affect women of reproductive age, leading to negative impacts on various aspects of their lives. These include material barriers, challenges in good hygiene practices, and emotional barriers around managing one's period. Though this has been studied in various regions around the world, there is limited research focused on Central America, particularly Guatemala, exploring how menstrual health affects women of reproductive age. Our research aimed to fill this gap by exploring how menstrual practices affect women emotionally and socially in this region. Our hypotheses are that older women would report more stigma with their menses and report menses having a greater overall impact on their lives, as well as having a better knowledge base of menstruation compared to younger women. Our goal was to understand the emotional and social impacts of menstruation on Guatemalan women and to assess differences between younger and older women regarding stigma, understanding, and overall impact in order to allow us to better apply the osteopathic principles to patients in resource-limited areas in order to better address their holistic needs. In our study, we conducted surveys during Kansas City University's Global Health Outreach in Guatemala in February 2024. The survey included 23 questions on menstrual experiences and impacts and was completed by 88 women living in rural towns around Antigua, Guatemala. Participants ranged from ages 13 and up with parental consent for minors. Our survey had questions that included basic background information, menstrual experiences, and the emotional and social influences affecting their menstrual experiences and overall well-being. The survey, created with osteopathic principles in mind, assessed various aspects of menstrual health and took into consideration the body's self-healing abilities, interconnected systems, and focus on preventative care. On the slides here, we have an example of the surveys that many of the women filled out for us. Our data highlighted key differences between our older group, 41 years and older, and a younger group, 40 years and younger, regarding their attitudes and experiences with menstruation. We also ran a cross-tabulation analysis to further understand the correlation between our statistically significant data to compare the expected versus observed to see if there was any difference noted and how large those differences are. 51% of younger women in our data reported never feeling judgment during their period compared to older women. And older women had a deeper understanding of the physiology during menstruation compared to younger women. When we look at our cross-tabulation results, one area of difference was the emotion of judgment. The expected number for never experiencing judgment in the younger group was 40.9, while the expected number for those who would experience some form of judgment during menstruation was 20.1. Our data showed that 45 participants responded never feeling judged, while 16 reported some or a lot of judgment. In contrast, the group of older women showed that 13 of them have experienced some judgment during their menses, which is greater than the expected number of 8.9. When we look at the understanding of physiology comparing with our age groups, there was a higher number of individuals in the older group category of 22 compared to the expected of 17.5 who had some or a lot of understanding of physiology. While for the younger group, there was a higher number of those who had no understanding 26 than the expected 21.5. General trend indicates that the younger group had less understanding of their physiology during menstruation, while the older group had a deeper understanding. Over here on the left, we have figure 1, which compares the level of education to physiological understanding of menstruation, with 71 participants having some college or less, and 11 having a college or graduate degree. We found no significant difference between the two education levels, or any associated correlation between understanding and education level. On the right, figure 2 shows the average length of menses of the females who participated in our survey. The average length ranged from 1 to 10 or more days, and as you can see here, most women were found to have an average length of menses for 3 to 4 days. In conclusion, our study revealed that older women in Guatemala experienced more stigma and have a better understanding of menstruation compared to younger women. These findings highlighted the need for continued research in this area, as well as the need for culturally sensitive education and interventions. Incorporating osteopathic principles into our research provided valuable insights into menstrual health and its broader impacts. This research underscores the importance of further investigations and targeted interventions to improve menstrual health and overall well-being for women in similar settings. I'd like to give a special thank you to the Kansas City University Global Health Honors Track for providing this opportunity, all of our patients and volunteers in your help in making this outreach a success, Dr. Larry Seegers for your help on the data analysis, and lastly, Dr. Desai for making this research project a reality. If you have any questions, you can scan our QR code below, and we'd be happy to answer any of them, as well as our references down at the bottom. Thank you for your attention.

menstrual health

rural Guatemala

emotional and social impacts

culturally sensitive education

osteopathic principles