”Determining correlation between severity of primary dysmenorrhea and resting metabolic rate in college-going girls of 18–25 years of age:” An observational study

Background: Dysmenorrhea is painful cramps originating from the uterus that occurs during menstruation. There is a dearth in the literature assessing a possible association between primary dysmenorrhea and resting metabolic rate (RMR). Aims and Objectives: To find the the correlation resting metabolic rate and primary dysmenorrhea in college going girls between 18 – 25 years using numeric pain rating scale and Harris benedict equation Material and Method: This study included a total of 206 college-going girls between 18 and 25 years of age with primary dysmenorrhea based on the selection criteria. They were administered with the Numerical Pain Rating Scale (NPRS), which divided them into mild, moderate, and severe pain and demographic data including age (years), height (cm), and weight (kg) which was employed into Harris–Benedict Equation to calculate their respective RMR and then it was correlated with the severity of dysmenorrhea. Results: The overall comparison of groups, based on the NPRS values, with RMR scores, showed a statistically significant difference (F = 3.0951, P = 0.0280). While analyzing pair-wise comparison within each group of pain scores for their metabolic rate values, the RMR of females with no pain that is, NPRS score - 0, showed a significantly higher metabolic rate than the ones with mild pain (P = 0.0027), moderate pain (P = 0.0123), as well as the ones with severe pain (P = 0.0036). Spearman rank correlation test revealed no association between different groups of NPRS scores and RMR values (t = −0.0926, P = 0.9263). Conclusion: The study concluded that there is no correlation between the severity of primary dysmenorrhea and RMR in girls between 18 and 25 years. However, girls who do not experience dysmenorrhea showed higher RMR than the girls with primary dysmenorrhea.