Work-related stress factors and menstrual pain: a nation-wide representative survey

While imposing research has been conducted with respect to the biological determinants of painful menstruation, little is known about the psychosocial factors, including work-related stress that might influence menstrual pain. We conducted a study in which we aimed to determine besides the prevalence of dysmenorrhoea whether menstrual pain was associated with job control, co-worker social support, job security and dissatisfaction with the job. Data of 2772 working women aged 18-55 years, participants in the Hungarostudy 2002 nation-wide representative survey was analyzed. Binary logistic regression was used to determine the association between work stress factors and menstrual pain. Altogether 15.5% of women reported to experience menstrual pain that limits their daily activity. Low job control, low co-worker social support and low job security were found to be associated with a higher risk for menstrual pain even after controlling for the effect of age, educational attainment, parity status, smoking, body-mass index and treatment for gynecological problems. Job dissatisfaction was also related to dysmenorrhoea, albeit not significantly. The relationship between work-related psychosocial factors and painful menstruation deserves further investigation in order to determine the possible pathways of this association.