Date Approved

2014

Degree Type

Open Access Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department or School

Health Sciences

Committee Member

Irwin G. Martin

Committee Member

Stephen Sonstein

Abstract

Dysmenorrhea is a common gynecological complaint among women, one that costs the U.S. economy approximately $2 billion in lost productivity each year. The present observational study examined the correlation of BMI and diagnoses of dysmenorrhea in a large sample of women ages 18-40 seen in an outpatient setting over the course of one year at a large health system in southeast Michigan. Although there were no statistically significant differences in the probability of dysmenorrhea among women of different BMI groups, the trending information seemed to suggest that dysmenorrhea is not influenced by BMI categories per se, but by extremes in body weight. Future research must include a larger data set so that differences between BMI groups can be more readily detected. It may also be prudent to control for nulliparity in future studies since dysmenorrhea has been shown to be inversely related to parity.

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