Prevalence and severity of dysmenorrhea among adolescent Jordanian girls: a cross sectional study

Abstract

Objective. Dysmenorrhea is prevalent among adolescent girls. The aims are to report on its prevalence and study the associations between its presence, severity, and characteristics of the adolescents and their menstrual cycles. Materials and Methods. A cross-sectional study was conducted between 1/10/2022 and 1/3/2023 and included adolescents from six schools. Information about presence, characteristics, and severity of dysmenorrhea were collected. Multinomial regression was used to study associations between presence and severity of dysmenorrhea and various variables, a P-value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results. We recruited 945 adolescents with the mean (SD) age and age of menarche being 15.3 (± 1.3) years and 12.8 (± 1.3) years, respectively. Of those recruited, 81.7% had dysmenorrhea, and its severity as measured by a numeric analogue scale was below and above the mean in 45% of the respondents. Furthermore, 14.7% missed school days during menstruation