Menstrual hygiene practice and its determinants among Adolescent Girls in Sub-Saharan Africa: A systematic review and meta-analysis protocol

Abstract Background: Poor menstrual hygiene practices can lead to gynecological problems, psychosocial stress, and reduced access to school. Menstrual hygiene has not received adequate attention in Sub-Saharan Africa. Moreover, there are fragmented and inconsistent findings. Therefore, this systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to estimate the pooled prevalence of menstrual hygiene practice and identify its associated factors among adolescent girls in Sub-Saharan Africa. Methods: The protocol for this review had registered at PROSPERO with registration number: CRD42020165628. In this study, the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guideline will be used to report the protocol. Online electronic databases PubMed, Google Scholar, CINAHL and grey literature will be searched to retrieve available studies. Joanna Briggs Institute checklist will be used to assess the quality of the studies. Heterogeneity among studies will be examined using a chi-squared test and I-squared statistic. To investigate sources of heterogeneity, subgroup analyses and meta-regression will be performed. Sensitivity analysis will be conducted to identify influential studies. Publication bias will be examined by funnel plots and Egger’s test. The statistical analysis will be conducted using STATA version-14 software. A random-effect model will be used to estimate the pooled prevalence, and statistical significance will be determined at a p-value of <0.05.Discussion: Poor menstrual hygiene practice affects the health of millions of adolescent girls in developing countries. Currently, there are no meta-analysis research findings on the overall pooled prevalence of menstrual hygiene practice and its associated factor in Sub-Saharan Africa. Therefore, this systematic review and meta-analysis will be used to inform policy-makers, programmers, planners, clinicians, and researchers to design appropriate strategies.