Lifestyle and prevalence of dysmenorrhea among Spanish female university students

Abstract

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of primary dysmenorrhea in a sample of Spanish university students, and to describe their menstrual characteristics, lifestyle habits and associated risk factors. This cross-sectional study was conducted with a total of 258 young female university students recruited from the Ciudad Real Faculty of Nursing, with a mean age of 20.63± 3.32 years. An anonymous self-report questionnaire was used to collect data from students. This included sociodemographic characteristics, lifestyle habits, gynecological personal history and the severity of pain using the visual analogue scale. The statistical analysis of the data included calculation of the mean, percentages, chi-square analysis of the data and logistic regression. The prevalence of dysmenorrhea was of 74.8% (n = 193) with a mean pain severity of 6.88 (±1.71). Our results show that 38.3% of students described their menstrual pain as severe and 58% as moderate. The bivariate analysis showed statistically significant differences between students with and without dysmenorrhea: a higher proportion of women with dysmenorrhea had a greater duration of the menstruation flow (p = .003), a longer duration of the menstrual cycle (p = .046), were not using the oral contraceptive pill (p = .026) and had a family history of dysmenorrhea (p = .001). Backward step-wise binary logistic regression analysis using all the significant bivariate variables including lifestyle variables revealed the following risk factors: drinking cola drinks, duration of the menstrual flow, eating meat and having a first-degree relative affected by dysmenorrhea.

Prevalence and Risk Factors Associated with Primary Dysmenorrhea among Chinese Female University Students: A Cross-sectional Study

“…The common symptoms associated with PD identified in this study were lower abdominal pain (85.9%), fatigue (60.9%), and irritability (50.8%), which are similar to those in a study among Spanish female university students. That study indicated edema (92.7%), irritability (81.9%), and fatigue (79.3%) as common symptoms, 27 although irritability and fatigue were more common than observed in this study. Similarly, the symptoms observed in this study are comparable with those in a study performed among Mexican university students in which the major symptoms associated with dysmenorrhea were lower abdominal pain (93%), irritability (50%), and depression (48%).…”

Association between cigarette smoking and the risk of dysmenorrhea: A meta-analysis of observational studies

“…The methodological quality of cross-sectional studies was assessed using the tool, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ). Studies assessed using this tool are classified as high quality (if they scored [8][9][10][11], moderate quality (if they scored 4-7) or low quality (if they scored 0-3). The methodological quality of cohort or case-control studies was assessed using the New-Ottawa Scale (NOS).…”

“…Cigarette smoking has been reported in literature as one of the modifiable risk factors for dysmenorrhea. Although women who smoke reported a range of more adverse reproductive outcomes than their non-smoking counterparts, the relationship between smoking and dysmenorrhea is still heterogeneous [11,12]. That is, some studies found that smokers were more likely to experience dysmenorrhea than non-smokers, whereas other studies reported that smokers were less likely to experience dysmenorrhea than non-smokers, and another study showed that smoking had no effect on dysmenorrhea.…”

Spiritual relaxation to reduce dysmenorrhea: a quasy experimental

“…The results of previous studies indicated that several factors affecting the intensity of menstrual pain were young menarche age, longer menstrual duration and excess menstrual volume 9,[26][27][28] . The intensity of menstrual pain could be mild, moderate and severe 29 .…”

“…The dysmenorrhea prevalence in the world is reported high and varied. The incidence of dysmenorrhea in female students at the An-Najah Palestine National University was 846 (85.1%) of the 956 female students who experienced menstruation 8 , at Castilla-La-Mancha University in Spain, the incidence of dysmenorrhea was 74.8% from 193 female students 9 and in India the incidence of dysmenorrhea in adolescents was 73.9% 10 . The incidence of dysmenorrhea in Indonesia was also high compared to other countries in the world, estimated at around 64.25% 11 with the percentage of primary dysmenorrhea of 90% and secondary dysmenorrhea of 15% 12 .…”