Functional and emotional disturbances of university students with dysmenorrhea and their health-seeking behaviors

Abstract

Introduction: Dysmenorrhea is a common gynecological health problem in young individuals. Purpose: To determine the functional and emotional disturbances of university students with dysmenorrhea and their health-seeking behaviors for dysmenorrhea. Materials and methods: The research was carried out with 437 students between November 2021 and January 2022. Data were collected with an individual introduction form, a visual analog scale to determine the severity of dysmenorrhea, and the Functional and Emotional Measure of Dysmenorrhea. In addition, data were evaluated with Mann Whitney U, Kruskal Wallis, and Spearman correlation tests. Results: The mean age of the students was 20.25±1.37, and 96.8% of them had experienced dysmenorrhea at least once in their menstrual period FEMD subscales were 25.11±7.46 (7-35) for functional disturbance and 21.00±7.84 (7-35) for emotional disturbance. There was a strong and significant positive correlation between the two subscales. In addition, 21.3% of the students had consulted a doctor due to dysmenorrhea; 43.9% had always used analgesics; 34.3% had sometimes used analgesics; 85.8% had applied non-drug methods for pain. Conclusions: Dysmenorrhea is quite common among university students. Students' functional and emotional disturbance levels increase as the severity of dysmenorrhea increases. As a health-seeking behavior, they had mainly used nonpharmacological methods. Keywords: Student, dysmenorrhea, pain, menstruation