Knowledge and Perception of Early Marriage among Adolescent Girls in a Selected Community of Rangpur District, Bangladesh

Early marriage (EM) is a threatened issue for adolescent girls. The direct reproducers for future generations are adolescent girls. Healthy adolescent girl indicate healthy future generation. The health of Bangladeshi adolescent girl is mostly exaggerated by EM. It is prerequisite for adolescent mainly adolescent girls and their family to have knowledge about EM. This study explored the knowledge and perception of EM among adolescent’s girls. A descriptive type of cross sectional study was conducted in a selected community of Rangpur district, Bangladesh where 120 adolescent girls were taken as sample from 10 May to 10 August 2016. Data was collected using semi-structured questionnaire through face to face interview and analyzed by SPSS 20.0 and excel spread sheet. The present study reported the average age of the participant’s was 15.61±1.79 (mean ±SD) years. There was a statistically significant (X2 =7.8, X2 =4.28 and X2 =5.19 with p≤0.05 respectively) association between participant’s age, education, marital status and level of knowledge about EM. 42.5% participants had sufficient knowledge and remaining (57.5%) had poor knowledge about EM. There is a need for having adequate knowledge and perception about EM especially its negative consequences among adolescent girls which influencing on the overall development of our country.

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