Is there any impact of employment status on premenstrual symptomatology?

Objective: to find out the difference between various premenstrual symptoms in employed and unemployed women. methodology: this was a cross sectional,prospective,comparative study conducted from may 2010 to april 2011,in emergency and out patient sections of obstetrics and gynecology department,lady reading hospital,peshawar. by purposive non-probability sampling technique,150 subjects were selected among attendants of regular patients,after fulfilling inclusion criterion of employed and unemployed women,in age group of 15-40years. premenstrual symptoms were recorded as,quantification of severity of psychological,social and physical symptoms,for two consecutive symptomatic cycles. spss 16.0 was used to analyze the data. chi-square test was used to compare the premenstrual symptoms between employed and unemployed women. p value ≤ 0.05 was taken as significant between pairs of variables. results: a total of 150 female patients recruited in the study. out of these 50.7% (n=76) were employed and unemployed were 49.3% (n=74). mean age was 26±6.2 years (15-45). overall 72% (n=109) of subjects were symptomatic with one or more premenstrual symptoms. psychological symptoms were found in 68 of 150 women (45%). about 50% of women in the employed group had psychological symptoms as compared to 40% in the un-employed group. social symptoms were present in 64 of 150 women (42%). about 36 out of 76 employed women (47%) whereas 28 out of 74 un-employed women (37%) reported social symptoms. physical symptoms were present in 89 of 150 women (59%). these were present in 43 out of 76 employed (56%) and 46 out of 74 un-employed women (62%). conclusion: the results suggest that the distribution of premenstrual symptoms does not vary significantly between employed and un-employed women. although different groups of females may have different manifestations,these are not statistically significant to emphasize the role of environmental factors in its causation. © 2015,postgraduate medical institute. all rights reserved.