Prevalence and severity of dysmenorrhea : A problem related to menstruation, among first and second year female medical students.
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Date
2008-10
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Abstract
Dysmenorrhea is the most common of gynecologic complaints.
It affects half of all female adolescents today and represents the leading
cause of periodic college/school absenteeism among that population. To
evaluate the menstrual problem specially dysmenorrhea and its severity in
female medical students and its effect on their regular activities. This is a
cross-sectional descriptive study; conducted on 107 female medical students,
all participants were given a questionnaire to complete; questions were
related to menstruation elucidating variations in menstrual patterns, history
of dysmenorrhea and its severity, pre-menstrual symptom and absenteeism
from college and /or class; to detect the severity of dysmenorrhea we used
the verbal multi-dimensional scoring system, participants were given 20
minutes to complete the questionnaire. The mean age of subjects at
menarche was 12.5 (±1.52) years, with a range of 10-15 years. The
prevalence of dysmenorrhea was 73.83%; approximately 4.67%of
dysmenorrhic subjects had severe dysmenorrhea. The average duration
between two periods and the duration of menstrual flow were 28.34 (±7.54)
days and 4.5 (±2.45) days respectively. Prevalence of other menstrual
disorders like irregularity, prolonged menstrual bleeding, heavy menstrual
bleeding and PCOD were 7.47%, 10.28%, 23.36% and 3.73% respectively.
Among female medical students who reported dysmenorrhea; 31.67% and
8.68% were frequently missing college & classes respectively. Premenstrual
symptom was the second most (60.50%) prevalent disorder and 67.08%
reported social withdrawal. Dysmenorrhea and PMS is highly prevalent
among female medical students, it is related to college/class absenteeism,
limitations on social, academic, sports and daily activities. Maximum
participants do not seek medical advice and self treat themselves with
prostaglandin inhibitors; like Ibuprofen.
Description
Keywords
dysmenorrhea, PMS (premenstrual syndrome), socio-economic status (SES), body mass index (BMI), menstruation, menarche
Citation
Singh Amita, Kiran Dukhu, Singh Harminder, Nel Bithika, Singh Prabhakar, Tiwari Pavan. Prevalence and severity of dysmenorrhea : A problem related to menstruation, among first and second year female medical students. Indian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology. 2008 Oct-Dec; 52(4): 389-397.