EJMS

Abstract

Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) is particularly common problem in the younger age groups and, therefore represents a significant public health problem in young girls. PMS has occasional extreme negative effect on the quality of life. A descriptive study design was used. The study aimed to study the effect of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) on adolescent’s health related quality of life (HRQOL). The study was conducted in the Faculty of Nursing Ain Shams University. A multistage stage simple random sample technique was used to recruit 50% of female students with PMS at different academic levels at the academic years 2010-2011; those were 179 students (26, 45, 42, and 66 students at first, second, third, and fourth academic level) respectively. Three tools of data collection were used, the first tool was structured interviewing questionnaire sheet concerned with socio-demographic characteristics and menstrual history, the second tool was Prospective Record of the Impact and Severity of Menstrual Symptoms (PRISM calendar) used to identify students suffering from PMS, and the third tool was The 36-item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) was used to assess students’ HRQOL. The study was carried out through beginning of February 2011 and ended at end of December 2011. The result of this study revealed that students mean age is (19.67 ± 1.3), 63% of them from urban area. As regard degree of PMS 31.0%, 44.7%, and 24.3% of students have mild, moderate, and severe degree of PMS respectively. Moreover 49.7% of students have incomplete correct knowledge regarding PMS while, 50.3% of them have complete correct knowledge regarding PMS. In addition, only 5.5% of them have complete correct knowledge regarding HRQOL. There is a highly significant decrease on mean score of HRQOL among students affected with PMS versus non-affected. The current study concluded that PMS has great burden on all dimensions of HRQOL. As, HRQOL score in students affected with PMS is obviously lower than students not affected with PMS, the more the severity of PMS, the significant less scores of all subscales of HRQOL except in role limitations due to emotional problems. Based on this finding, the following was recommended; doctors should adopt comprehensive measures to improve the quality of life in the affected students; further study are needed to study effect of different management strategies on improving HRQOL.