Survey study, 2021
How common are premenstrual symptoms in female medical students, and how severe are they?
About 30% have premenstrual symptoms, mostly mild. Psychological symptoms like irritability are more common than physical ones.
What they did
Cross-sectional study of 500 female medical students aged 18-28 at a medical college in Punjab, India. They filled out questionnaires about premenstrual symptoms and rated severity on a 4-point scale. Symptoms were split into physical (breast tenderness, bloating) and psychological (irritability, mood swings).
What they found
30.24% reported one or more premenstrual symptoms. Of those with symptoms, 22.76% had mild severity, 5.6% had moderate, and 1.87% had severe symptoms. Among physical symptoms, breast tenderness was most common, followed by bloating and weight gain. Among psychological symptoms, irritability was most common, followed by restlessness and mood swings.
What it means for you
About one-third of this group has premenstrual symptoms, with most being mild. But this is only medical students at one college in India, so may not represent all women. The study recommends tracking symptoms daily over at least one cycle for accurate diagnosis.
30.24%
Have premenstrual symptoms
22.76%
Have mild symptoms
5.6%
Have moderate symptoms
About the study
- Original title
- Prevalence of Premenstrual Symptoms and Symptom Severity among Female Medical Students - An Institutional Study
- Authors
- Neelam Banga, Gagandeep Kaur, Gunjeet Singh Sandhu et al.
- Journal
- Journal of Evidence Based Medicine and Healthcare
- Year
- 2021
- Study design
- Survey study
- Participants
- 500
- What was tested
- None - observational study
- Open access
- Yes
- Read the paper
- doi.org/10.18410/jebmh/2021/7
Topics
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