Effectiveness of Physical Therapy of Primary Dysmenorrhea Among Female Students

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.