Valiani Mahboubeh, Babaei Elaheh, Heshmat Reza, Zare Zahra
Department of Midwifery, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
Iran J Nurs Midwifery Res. 2010 Dec;15(Suppl 1):371-8.
Dysmenorrhea or menstrual pain is one of the most common disorders experienced by 50% of women in their reproductive age. Adverse effects of medical treatments and its failure rate of 20-25% have caused many women to seek other complementary and alternative treatment methods for primary dysmenorrhea. Hence, this study aimed to compare and determine the efficacy of reflexology and Ibuprofen on reduction of pain intensity and duration of menstrual pain.
This was a quasi-experimental clinical trial study on 68 students with primary dysmenorrhea living in Isfahan University of Medical Sciences' dormitories. Simple random sampling was done considering the inclusion criteria and then the students were randomly divided into two groups. In the reflexology group, the subjects received 10 reflexology sessions (40 minutes each) in two consecutive mense cycles. The Ibuprofen group received Ibuprofen (400 mg), once every eight hours for 3 days during 3 consecutive mense cycles. To assess the severity of dysmenorrhea, Standard McGill Pain Questionnaire, visual analog scale (VAS) and pain rating index (PRI) were used in this study.
Findings of the study showed that the two groups had no statistically significant difference in terms of demographic characteristics (p > 0.05). Reflexology method was associated with more reduction of intensity and duration of menstrual pain in comparison with Ibuprofen therapy. Independent and Paired t-test showed that there was a significant difference in the two groups between intensity and duration of menstrual pain using VAS and PRI in each of the 3 cycles between reflexology and Ibuprofen groups (p < 0.05).
Considering the results of the study, reflexology was superior to Ibuprofen on reducing dysmenorrhea and its treatment effect continued even after discontinuing the intervention in the third cycle. Therefore, considering that reflexology is a non-invasive, easy and cheap technique, it seems that it can replace anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) to avoid their adverse side effects.
痛经是育龄期50%女性所经历的最常见病症之一。药物治疗的不良反应及其20%-25%的失败率致使许多女性寻求其他补充和替代治疗方法来缓解原发性痛经。因此，本研究旨在比较并确定反射疗法和布洛芬在减轻疼痛强度及缩短痛经持续时间方面的疗效。
这是一项针对68名居住在伊斯法罕医科大学宿舍的原发性痛经学生的准实验性临床试验研究。根据纳入标准进行简单随机抽样，然后将学生随机分为两组。在反射疗法组，受试者在连续两个月经周期中接受10次反射疗法治疗（每次40分钟）。布洛芬组在连续三个月经周期的3天里，每8小时服用一次布洛芬（400毫克）。本研究使用标准麦吉尔疼痛问卷、视觉模拟量表（VAS）和疼痛评分指数（PRI）来评估痛经的严重程度。
研究结果表明，两组在人口统计学特征方面无统计学显著差异（p>0.05）。与布洛芬治疗相比，反射疗法能更有效地减轻痛经的强度和持续时间。独立样本和配对t检验显示，在反射疗法组和布洛芬组的三个周期中，使用VAS和PRI评估痛经强度和持续时间时，两组之间存在显著差异（p<0.05）。
考虑到研究结果，反射疗法在减轻痛经方面优于布洛芬，且即使在第三个周期停止干预后，其治疗效果仍持续存在。因此，鉴于反射疗法是一种非侵入性、简便且廉价的技术，似乎它可以替代抗炎药物（非甾体抗炎药）以避免其不良副作用。
