Effect of Medicinal Plants in the Treatment of Primary dysmenorrhea in Iran: A Review Article

Primary dysmenorrhea is a common problem in women of reproductive age that effect their quality of life and social activities. Since today using of medicinal plants for treatment of primary dysmenorrhea has been addressed، so this study was performed with aim to determine the effect of medicinal plants in treatment of primary dysmenorrhea as a review article in Iran. This is a review study. The information about the effect of plants in treatment of primary dysmenorrhea was searched from databases of MedLib، Magiran، Google scholar، IranMedex، SID، PubMed، and Scopus without time limitation. Then، the articles which obtained the score of >3 with Jadad criteria were entered to the study. Data were analyzed qualitatively. In this study، a total of 16 different types of medicinal plants were studied in 35 clinical trials which had inclusion criteria were evaluated. Most of the medicinal herbs reviewed in the studies had flavonoid compounds with analgesic and anti-inflammatory effect that had desirable effect on dysmenorrhea pain relief. The majority of these plants have minimal or no side effects، because the methodology of the studies was heterogeneous in terms of quality، so performing a meta-analysis was impossible. Given that an increasing number of articles with acceptable credit and positive results have evaluated the fennel، so this plant can be safely used in the relief of pain in primary dysmenorrhea.