The comparison of the frequency of the use of pharmacologic therapy and complementary and alternative medicine for primary dysmenorrhea in adolescent girls of Lar city

Dysmenorrhea is one of the most common problems of women that is associated with significant decrease in academic performance and social activities. Chemical medications and complementary and alternative therapies are commonly used for dysmenorrhea. However, there is no precise information about their types and frequency of use. This study aimed to compare the frequency of the use of pharmacologic therapy and complememtary and alternative medicine to relieve primary dysmenorrhea.
This cross-sectionl comparative study was done on 494 adolescent girls in high schools of Lar with the average age of 15.93 0.94. A two-phase stratified sampling method was used. Data were collected using a qrestionnaire made by researchers and analysed by means of descriptive statistics, chi-square, and one-way analysis of variance in SPSS version 16.
The frequency of the use of chemical medications was 34 (6.9%) that was significantly diferent from the frequeny of complementary medicine 118 (23.9%) and alternative therapies 279 (56.5%). (P=0.00) Herbal medicines including Teucrium Polium, Matricaria Recutia, Salvia Mirzayani and combinations of them with the frequency of 316(65.15%) were the most nonpharmocological remedies used.
The frequency of the use of complementary and alternative therapies for dysmenorrhea was relatively high. This finding indicates the necessity of more interventional studies on the effectiveness of these therapies and training adolescent girls and their families.