The Study for Usefulness of Mandala Art Therapy in Primary Dysmenorrhea

Abstract

Primary dysmenorrhea is painful menstruation due to uterine functional origin without any other gynecologic diseases such as endometriosis or adenomyosis. The pain of primary dysmenorrhea is from hyper contraction or high sensitivity to pain. The primary dysmenorrhea has been treated by NSAIDs (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) or oral contraceptives from the past. However, primary dysmenorrhea is not controlled in all patients by these treatments. Some patients need more supportive treatment. The many supportive treatment have tried to this condition. The art therapy can also tried for this supportive treatment, so we studied mandala art therapy for primary dysmenorrhea. The purpose of this study is observing the usefulness of art therapy for supportive therapy of primary dysmenorrhea.We estimate the degree of pain by VAS (Visual Analog Scale), and statistically compares the change of pain before and after mandala therapy by χ-square with Fisher’s exact test. We did mandala therapy 2 times/week from menstruation to next menstruation, and we compare the change of pain before and after mandala therapy by VAS score. The result of this study is as follows. We observed the pain change in 10 patients. The four of 10 patients felt no change in pain after therapy, but the 2 of 10 patients felt no pain after therapy. The four of 10 patients felt decreased pain after therapy although not disappear completely. Therefore, the six of 10 patients can be felt decreased pain after mandala therapy (P<0.05). The mandala art therapy can be useful for supportive therapy of primary dysmenorrhea. However, a study of the bigger population is needed to confirm this effect for primary dysmenorrhea