Tiwari P: Prevalence and severity of dysmenorrhea: a problem related to menstruation, among first and second year female medical students

Abstract: Dysmenorrhea is the most common of gynecologic complaints. I t affects half of al l female adolescents today and represents the leading cause of per iodic col lege/school absenteeism among that popula t ion. To evaluate the menstrual problem specially dysmenorrhea and its severity in female medical students and its effect on their regular activities. This is a cross-sectional descriptive study; conducted on 107 female medical students, a l l par t ic ipants were g iven a ques t ionnai re to comple te; ques t ions were related to menstruation elucidating variations in menstrual patterns, history of dysmenorrhea and its severity, pre-menstrual symptom and absenteeism from college and /or class; to detect the severity of dysmenorrhea we used the verbal mul t i-dimensional scor ing system, par t ic ipants were given 20 minu tes to comple te the ques t ionna i re. The mean age o f sub jec t s a t menarche was 12.5 (±1.52) yea r s, w i th a r ange o f 10-15 yea r s. The preva lence o f dysmenor rhea was 73.83%; approx imate ly 4.67%of dysmenor rh ic sub jec t s had severe dysmenor rhea. The ave rage dura t io