Social and economic factors influencing the age of menarche of female students at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the Jan Kochanowski University in Kielce compared to developmental norms

Introduction
The age of menarche is the beginning of the final puberty phase. It is used as an assessment criterion for girls’ sexual maturation. Despite much research in the area, the issue is still valid because, along with improvement of the quality of life and socio-economic conditions, a tendency has been observed for girls go through puberty earlier.

Aim of the research
To analyse the menarche age of female students at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences Jan Kochanowski University (JKU) in Kielce with respect to socio-economic conditions and developmental norms.

Material and methods
An anonymous retrospective questionnaire was applied and filled out by a total of 132 female students (70 from urban areas, 62 from rural areas). The questions concerned menarche age, socio-economic conditions, health, height, and weight. From the obtained data, mean values and standard deviations were calculated, and Student’s t-test analysis was performed.

Results
Among the female students from urban areas, the majority of them, i.e. 18.57%, achieved sexual maturity at the age of 12.0 years. Among the girls from rural areas, the majority of them (19.37%) had their first menstruation at the age of 13.0. The mean menarche age of female students from cities is 12 years and 10 months, from the countryside – 13 years and 1 month. The mean puberty age of the JKU female students is similar to the corresponding age in other regions of Poland.

Conclusions
It cannot be unequivocally stated that socio-economic conditions have a crucial impact on the age of menarche. The differences between urban and rural standard of living conditions are blurring.