Abstract:
Primary dysmenorrhea is a serious public health issue with high prevalence. It
affects physical and mental health which in turn influences daily activities, quality
of life, and work productivity.
OBJECTIVES
The current study was undertaken to determine the most effective method
among three physical therapy techniques for primary dysmenorrhea The main
objectives of the study were to find out and compare the effects of transcutaneous
electrical nerve stimulation on pain, depression, and quality of life in students with
primary dysmenorrhea.
MATERIAL AND METHODS
This randomized controlled trial involved ninety-nine diagnosed cases of
primary dysmenorrhea with age between 16 and 25. Subjects were selected
through convenience sampling and randomly allocated by lottery method into
three groups: Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulator group (A), Stretch
group (B), and Stretch group (C). The group A was treated with transcutaneous
electrical nerve stimulator while stretch groups B and C were treated with homebased
stretching exercises in asymptomatic phase and symptomatic phase
respectively. The data was collected through self-structured questionnaire for
demographics, numeric pain rating scale for pain, daily record of severity of
problems for symptoms of primary dysmenorrhea, short form-36 for health related
quality of life, patient health questionnaire for depression and visual analogue
scale for satisfaction level. Data was collected for three successive menstrual
vi
cycles at baseline and at end of each cycle. Patient compliance was high due to
enthusiasm of participants. Intervention-induced changes within the groups were
investigated using repeated measure analysis of variance while one-way Analysis
of variance was used to compare the groups. Linear regression has been used for
prediction of pain and DRSP with different domains of quality of life and level of
depression.
