Comparison of the Effectiveness of Relaxation Therapy and Pharmaceutical Therapy in Decreasing the Symptoms of Premenstrual Syndrome

Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) is a collection of emotional symptoms, with or without physical symptoms, related to a woman's menstrual cycle that decrease by bleeding andaffects the sufferers’ personal and social performance. The research purpose is to draw acomparison of the effectiveness of relaxation therapy and pharmaceutical therapy in decreasing the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome. Therefore, in a semi-experimentalstudy with control group, a sample of 26 women diagnosed with premenstrual syndromeparticipated voluntarily and were assigned to three 12-individual groups of control, experimental 1 (Compound Cyproterone contraceptive pills for three menstrual cycles) and experimental 2 (3 times of weekly relaxation for three menstrual cycles and reading selflearning notes). The groups were tested with regard to depression, premenstrual syndrome and depression prior to and subsequent to intervention. The results of covariance analysis indicated that pharmaceutical therapy, relaxation and reading self-learning notes can decrease the symptoms of pre-menstrual syndrome among the sufferers. It seems that relaxation training and pharmaceutical therapy can decrease the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome.