The Lived Experience of Precocious Puberty Girls: Qualitative study

One of the most critical periods of life is puberty, which is a natural phenomenon in the evolutionary process of each person's life. During puberty, the child experiences a variety of physical and psychological changes. The development of physical changes associated with puberty, earlier than usual, is known as precocious puberty which poses serious challenges for the individual. The aim of this study was to investigate the lived experience of girls from precocious puberty. So, eight girls who experienced precocious puberty were selected by convenience sampling method and studied using semi-structured interviews. Sampling was continued until data saturation. In order to analyze the data, the data were first recorded and coded and then analyzed using the colaizzi method. The results of this study indicate that precocious puberty poses additional challenges in physical, psychological and social fields such as role pressure, suspension, and fragile self-esteem. It can be concluded that premature puberty in girls is associated with physical and psychological challenges. In the present study, it was shown that mental problems can go beyond physical problems and create more challenges for people and remain unsolved even in adulthood.