Randomization
SECONDARY
We visited 72 secondary girls’ schools for screening. Based on inclusion criteria, we selected 28 schools out of 72. We prepared two separate lists—one for urban (6 urban schools) and one for rural schools (22 rural schools). From each list, clusters (schools) were paired based on similar criteria of the schools such as student number, the infrastructure of the schools, and availability of electricity. We randomly selected one pair from each list and within each pair, one school was assigned to the intervention arm and the other one was assigned to the control arm through randomization. Randomization was done by computer-generated random numbers using STATA. A statistician performed the randomization and the study investigators enrolled the participants. Although all the adolescent girls studying in grades six, seven and eight of the selected schools were our study participants, we collected data from randomly selected 25 students from each grade. There was a total of 75 students from each school. Thus, at baseline, there were a total of 300 study participants (150 students in the intervention and 150 students in the control arm). Due to the loss of follow-up, there were 293 participants in the endline survey (148 and 145 students in the intervention and control arm respectively). Marriage, migration, and reluctance to give permission to collect data due to the COVID-19 pandemic were three reasons for the loss of follow-up. “