Abstract

Objective: To examine the prevalence of dysmenorrhea among medical students in Public medical colleges of Lahore and to study the strategies adopted by the students to wane their symptoms.
Methodology: Students from public medical colleges were selected as a sample by using non probability convenient sampling method. A total of 1125 questionnaires were distributed and 1025 were returned and used for analysis. The response rate was 73.33%.
Results: The mean age of students was 21.53±1.892 years. The mean menarche age was 11±1.54 years and mean duration of bleeding was 4 days. Amongst 1023 students, 83.6% had dysmenorrhea before or during bleeding. Pain was mild in 16.74%, moderate in 32.5% and severe in 38.6% using Visual Analogue Scale. One third (33%) had visited any of the medical or gynecological consultants for their pain and amongst those, 65% had been taking analgesics for pain relief.
Conclusion: The prevalence of dysmenorrhea was 78.6% amongst the students in medical college of Lahore. There is a need for more research into this aspect and more awareness should be made as over the counter drugs may be harmful.

Key words: Dysmenorrhea, prevalence, medical student.