The prevalence of menstrual disturbances in Birjand University of Medical Sciences students

Abnormal uterine bleeding is one of the most important disorders that college age young woman may frequently experience it. These problems deserve careful evaluation; they may reflect normal ovulatory menstrual symptoms or be suggestive of significant pathology that can have a major impact on future reproductive and general health. Survey of prevalence of abnormal utrine bleeding and several kind of it may have an important role to treat and prevent of these disorders.

This crass-sectional descriptive study was conducted on 300 college age students of Birjand University of Medical Sciences at 2006. Selection of students carried out based on total number of students by systematic randomized sampling methods and the students answered the questions. Questionnaire was planed according to purpose, demographic variables and survey of menstrual cycle disorders. Then data saved on SPSS software package. Chi-square and t-test served for statistical analysis and α=0.05 declared as significant level.

The mean age of students was 21.12.1 years; the mean of mean of menace age was 13.81.6 years. Duration of bleeding was 6.51.5 days and cycle length was 27.33.9 days. 82.3% of students were single and 17.7% were married. 35% of students were native and 65% were non-native. Irregular periods were observed in 68.7% of the cases and regular cycle was observed just in 31.3% of cases. Prevalence of polymenorrhea, hypomenorrhea, hypermenorrhea, oligomenorrhea and monometrorhagia were 3.5%, 1%, 14.4%, 6.3% and 15.8% respectively. Prevalence of hirsutism was 25% and 8.6% of them had oligomenorrhea. According the results there was not significant difference between prevalence of oligomenorrhea in hirsute and non-hirsute cases (P=0.4). The prevalence of hirsutism in the family of hirsute and non-hirsute cases was 31.5% and 6.3% respectively that their difference was significant (α=0.05). The mean of menarche age in students with regular menstrual cycle was 13.41.9 years. It was 13.81.5 in the students with irregular menstrual and this difference was significant (α=0.05).

According to prevalence of menstrual cycle disorders in young woman, we can not only present a young woman s current health, sense of well-being, but also improve quality of life during adolescence.