Living with Restrictions. The Perspective of Nursing Students with Primary Dysmenorrhea

Abstract

Primary dysmenorrhea (PD) affects a large number of female university students, diminishing their quality of life and hindering academic performance, representing a significant cause of absenteeism. The purpose of our study was to determine how nursing students experienced restrictions as a result of primary dysmenorrhea. A qualitative exploratory study was conducted among 33 nursing students with primary dysmenorrhea. A purposeful sampling strategy was applied. Data were collected from five focus groups (two sessions each) and the field notes of 10 researchers. A video meeting platform was used to conduct the focus groups. A thematic inductive analysis was performed. Thirty-three female nursing students participated in the study with a mean age of 22.72 (SD 3.46) years. Three broad themes emerged: (a) restrictions on daily activities and sports; (b) academic restrictions, and (c) restrictions on social and sexual relationships. The students described restrictions in performing everyday activities, such as carrying weight, and shopping. Some students even gave up the practice of sports and were absent from classes at the university, and from clinical practices at the hospital. The pain affected their ability to maintain and create new social relationships. Primary dysmenorrhea caused restrictions in the personal, social and academic life of the nursing students.

A systematic review of the menstrual experiences of university students and the impacts on their education: A global perspective

“…Sixteen studies explored students' feelings towards menstruation [14,15,20,21,[24][25][26][27][28][29]. Of them, nine studies were quantitative [14,15,20,21,24,26,27,30,31], six studies were qualitative [25,28,[32][33][34][35], and one employed mixed methods [29]. Overall, most students exhibited negative attitudes toward menstruation irrespective of the income-level of their study country.…”

“…Spanish students who experienced dysmenorrhea or had female family members that referred to menstruation as a 'time of sickness' also constructed menstruation as a 'disturbance or illness' or a 'living hell' [33]. These students felt a lack of control over their lives as menstrual pain disrupted their daily activities [32].…”

“…Educational consequences of the menstrual experience included absenteeism (n = 43, 51.8%) [14, 16, 18-20, 23, 27, 29, 32, 36, 37, 39, 40, 42, 43, 46, 48, 51-55, 57, 63-65, 67, 68, 70, 71, 73, 74, 77-80, 82-84, 86, 90, 94], participation and concentration in class (n = 17, 20.5%) [25,29,30,32,36,42,46,48,52,63,70,74,78,80,84,89,90], or academic performance (n = 14, 12.9%) [27,30,32,37,45,46,49,52,57,70,79,80,84,87]. Quantitative studies assessed these impacts through students' self-reports, however only seven studies reported details of their measurements [18,48,53,55,63,67,84].…”

“…Qualitative studies provided an in-depth understanding of how students viewed these impacts. Students expressed frustration at themselves for their study and class concentration limitations [32] or at their university for failing to acknowledge how pain can impact class attendance and achievement [25,29]. To reduce this impact, students took painkillers [32,65,80,82] or completed university assignments before their next period: .…”

“…In focus groups, Spanish students with dysmenorrhea described how they would attend their compulsory classes despite being in pain, but otherwise would miss class because the pain was too intense and they could not focus [32].…”