فهرست نشریات علمی دسترسی آزاد ایران

BACKGROUND: Adolescent girls experience physical, psychological, and social changes duringpuberty. Lack of sufficient information, skills, and readiness to overcome this stressful situation makethem vulnerable. The present study aims to assess the level of knowledge, attitude, and strategyused for coping with puberty crises of female secondary school students in Karaj, Iran.MATERIALS AND METHODS: Five‑hundred and seventy female secondary school students fromKaraj, Iran participated in this cross‑sectional study. Knowledge, attitudes, and coping strategies ofadolescents about puberty were evaluated using various questionnaires. The obtained data wereanalyzed using Chi‑square, Fisher’s exact, Kruskal–Wallis, Mann–Whitney, and Spearman tests.RESULTS: The average age of participants was 15.28 ± 1.58 years old. About 85.1% of theparticipants had high knowledge about puberty and 66.7% had a good attitude toward it. Nearly, 54.2%of the girls used the avoidance‑oriented coping strategy. There was no significant relationship betweenknowledge and attitude regarding selective strategies to cope with stressful situations in puberty.CONCLUSION: According to the results, continuous training in secondary schools is necessary toimprove adolescents’ knowledge and attitudes toward puberty. Moreover, more training is requiredto change the dominant avoidance‑oriented coping strategy to a task‑oriented approach, especiallyat the first‑grade level in secondary school.