Dysmenorrhea and Menstrual Attitudes in Adult Women

Lee, Eun Hee; Kim, Jeung Im; Kim, Hye Won; Lee, Hye Kyung; Lee, Sook Hee; Kang, Nam Mi; Hur, Myung Haeng

Abstract

The survey was conducted to look out the characteristics of menstruation and it's management, menstrual attitudes and degree of dysmenorrhea in the adult women. The subjects were 601 women, aged 20 year old and over, selected by convenient sampling. The results were as follows; 1. The mean age of the subjects was 29.1 years, the subjects were consisted of 346 unmarried and 304 delivery experienced person. 2.The characteristics of menstruation were as follows; irregular 167 person(27.8%), painful 451 person(75%), mean score of pain was 5.9 point and first day was most severe(45.1%). On the while, they have used the method to manage the pain such as "endure 50.8%", "to have a medicine 31.5%". 3.Menstrual attitudes were as follows; attitudes was negative such as it was meaningful as a woman (78.9%), only for birth a baby (51.6%), and menstruation was acceptable (42.9%), hope to get away(28.8%). 4.The degree of dysmenorrhea was a significant difference by age(F=4.0, P<0.01). Especially, in the subcategory, it was significant except for water retension. That is, lower concentration(F=2.60, p<0.05), negative affect(F=3.09, p<0.05), behavior change (F=6.41, p<0.050), pain(F=3.89, p<0.01), autonomic nerve response(F=2.80, p<0.05). We can conclude there were many women to have negative attitudes to menstruation and first day was most severe dysmenorrhea and it was different by age. From this results, we may suggest as follows; 1. We suggest the program for women to have a positive attitudes will be developed. 2. We can suggest that we need to develop the active and effective method to control dysmenorrhea in the first day during menstruation.