Efficacy of active stretching exercises against symptoms of primary dysmenorrhoea in young adult females: a randomized controlled trial

Abstract

Introduction. Primary dysmenorrhoea symptoms affect most women’s daily life activities. The aim of the current study was to assess the efficacy of active stretching exercises in reducing pain intensity and improving menstruation characteristics of young adult females. Methods. Overall, 33 females with primary dysmenorrhoea were randomly assigned to 3 equal groups: group A (n = 11), im-plementing a supervised active stretching program 3 times a week for 4 weeks; group B (n = 11), practising non-supervised active stretching 3 times a week for 4 weeks; and group C (n = 11) – a control group. Pain intensity and menstruation characteristics were measured with the visual analogue scale and verbal multidimensional scoring system, respectively, before and at the end of the study. The Kruskal-Wallis test was used to determine differences between groups. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test served to perform within-group comparison. Results. A significant reduction in pain intensity was obtained in both intervention groups (A and B) (p-value of 0.003 and 0.007, respectively), whereas post-treatment comparison between groups revealed a statistically significant reduction in pain intensity in favour of group A (p < 0.001). A significant improvement in menstruation characteristics was found in group A (p = 0.003), with non-significant improvements in groups B and C (p-value of 0.07 and 1.0, respectively). Conclusions. Both supervised and non-supervised active stretching exercises could provide a safe non-pharmacological alternative for pain relief in primary dysmenorrhoea.