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Abstract
Background: Menarche is an important indicator for assessing the developmental status of pubertal girls. Despite its importance, there is no nationwide information on menarcheal age in Turkey.
Aim: This paper is the first attempt to examine age at menarche for Turkey as a whole. The aim is to present the secular trend of menarcheal age and variations across different socio-demographic groups.
Methods: Data were employed from the Turkey Demographic and Health Survey, 2008. Mean menarcheal ages were estimated for birth cohorts and socio-demographic sub-groups. The pace of decline in menarcheal age has been estimated using multiple linear regression analysis, controlling for year of birth and other variables.
Results: Mean age at menarche was estimated as 13.30 (95% CI = 13.26–13.35). It was estimated as 13.17 years (95% CI 12.95–13.38) for the youngest birth cohort (1989–1993), as opposed to 13.44 (95% CI 13.37–13.52) years for the cohort born in 1959–1968.
Conclusion: Regression analysis indicated a decrease of 1.44 months per decade, providing evidence of a secular trend in menarcheal age in Turkey. Further results suggested childhood place of residence, education, welfare status and number of siblings to be significantly associated with menarcheal age.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the Hacettepe University Institute of Population Studies for providing us with the data from the 2008 Turkey Demographic and Health Survey. We would like to thank Patricia Berglund, Steven G. Heeringa and Brady T. West (in alphabetical order) from the University of Michigan, Institute of Social Research for providing useful feedback on earlier versions of the paper. We also thank the anonymous referees, whose contributions and comments have been essential in improving the paper.
Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.
NOTICE OF AUTHOR CORRECTION The Early Online version of this article published online ahead of print on 15th February 2011 contained an error located on page 5, under the Results section. The sentence “Multiple regression analysis showed that the effect of having high school or higher education did not differ significantly from the other two levels of education. However, the variable was significant in the model (p < 0.05, not shown in tables), implying that the significant difference was between having the lowest and middle levels of education. A re-run of the model with the lowest category as the reference confirmed this claim; first or second level primary school graduates had 0.13 years earlier menarche than women in the lowest education category (with p < 0.05, not shown in tables) all else being equal” should have read “Multiple regression analysis showed that the effects of having first or secondary level primary school education, or high school or higher education did not differ significantly from the lowest level of education. However, the variable was significant in the model (p < 0.05, not shown in tables), implying that the significant difference was between having the middle and highest levels of education. A re-run of the model with the highest category as the reference confirmed this claim; first or second level primary school graduates had 0.13 years earlier menarche than women in the highest education category (with p < 0.05, not shown in tables) all else being equal”. This has been corrected for the current version.