Primary Dysmenorrhea Associated with Psychological Distress in Medical Sciences Students in The North of Iran: A Cross-Sectional Study

BACKGROUND: Primary dysmenorrhea is the usual medical status in medical students that are defined as pain during the menstrual period. This study was done to evaluate the psychological problems associated with dysmenorrhea. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Three hundred forty students aged 18 to 20 years participated in this cross‑sectional study (194 with dysmenorrhea and 150 without dysmenorrhea). In this cross‑sectional study, data were collected through the sociodemographic checklist, the verbal multidimensional scoring system (VMS), and the revised version of the Symptom Checklist-90 (SCL-90-R) questionnaire using the convenience sampling method. This questionnaire includes 9 Subscale and a GSI index. We considered psychological distress to be equivalent to the Global Severity İndex (GSI), which is obtained by dividing 90 questions by 90. The significance level of the tests was considered 0.05. RESULTS: The GSI of the SCL-90 score in the 194 students with dysmenorrhea and 150 students without dysmenorrhea was 1.02 ± 0.42 and 0.34 ± 0.15 respectively (P<0.001). In the group with dysmenorrhea, the severity of dysmenorrhea was significantly associated with a family history of dysmenorrhea and mother's education (P=0.012 and P=0.037, respectively). The strongest predictors of GSI>1 were a family history of dysmenorrhea and mother’s education [odds ratio (OR)=2.33, 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.43-4.15 and OR=0.45, 95% CI, 0.24-0.87, respectively]. CONCLUSION: According to the result, dysmenorrhea is associated with psychological distress. Psychological interventions and counseling in addition to drug treatment are suggested for treatment of primary dysmenorrhea. Therefore, it is necessary to formulate strategies and health policies to recover psychological issues of menstrual health.