A quasi-experimental study to assess the effectiveness of acupressure on pain perception and menstrual distress syndrome among the adolescent girls with primary dysmenorrhoea at selected schools, Ariyalur district, Tamil nadu, south India

Dr. Judie Arulappan; Mrs. Geetha N; Dr. Hemamalini. M

Volume : IV, Issue : IX, September - 2015

A quasi-experimental study to assess the effectiveness of acupressure on pain perception and menstrual distress syndrome among the adolescent girls with primary dysmenorrhoea at selected schools, Ariyalur district, Tamil nadu, south India

Dr. Judie Arulappan, Mrs. Geetha N, Dr. Hemamalini. M

Abstract :

 The aimofthestudy was to determine the effectiveness of acupressure on pain perception and menstrual distress syndrome among adolescent girls with dysmenorrhoea. Thestudy was conducted using Quantitative approach, applying a quasi-experimentalpre-test &post-test research design. Acupressure was independent variable, Pain perception and menstrual distress syndrome (MSD) were assessed as dependentvariables. TheStudy wasconductedinselected 6 schools in Ariyalur district. Schools were allocated on basis of random allocation i.e. 3 schools for study group and 3 for control group to avoid contamination of samples. Purposive sampling technique wasusedto select samples of 207. The tools used were (i) Screening tool for dysmenorrhoea, (ii) Questionnaire for demographic variable, Personal variable and Clinical variable,(iii) Short form Mc Gill pain questionnaire (SF-MPQ) (Melzack 1975) and (iv) Moos menstrual distress questionnaire (MOOS 1968). The data was analyzed using SPSS 22, both descriptivestatistics and inferential statistics.The results revealed that the acupressure is effective with regard to level of painperception and menstrual distress syndrome which are statistically significant at p<0.001 level among adolescent girls with dysmenorrhoea in study group. The positive outcome of the study findings indicate that the acupressure is an effective non-pharmacological and cost effective strategy in reducing pain perception and MSD in adolescent girls with dysmenorrhoea.