Date of Award

3-28-2007

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Jeffrey Holm

Abstract

A fundamental issue hindering research in the area of primary dysmenorrhea is the lack of a gold standard for the diagnosis and assessment of dysmenorrhea. The current study seeks to further the research in the area of memory for menstrual pain and proposes a method of assessment for dysmenorrhea. In addition, this study provides preliminary data for the development of a measure specific to dysmenorrhea. Women with painful menstruation and women with low pain during menstruation were assessed twice, during menstruation and two weeks later, using three different assessment instruments. Participants (N=43) ranged in age from 18 to 24. In general, women tended to under-estimate their menstrual pain during recall. On the MMDQ, the high pain group underestimated their menstrual pain during recall, whereas the low pain group recalled their pain level more accurately. Although the MMDQ was used to create the original groupings, women in the high pain group had higher scores on all the menstrual cycle symptom and pain scales of the DSI and VMSS. Concurrent and convergent validity was adequate between the three measures. Thus, the VMSS and the newly created measure, the DSI, preformed as well as the MMDQ for assessing women with low and high levels of menstrual pain.

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