Influence of change of place on premenstrual symptoms in young college women

Introduction: Symptoms of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) are common in young college students. But factors associated with severity of PMS in them is lacking. Thus we studied the effect of migration from home - town to a distant place on severity of PMS symptoms in residents of college hostels. Materials and Methods Study group: 100 recent residents of college hostels. Control group: 100 age matched residents residing in the same college hostels for more than one year . This was a questionnaire based study in which participants self-reported on PMS symptoms. Study group self-reported on symptoms at home and variation in severity of these symptoms immediately after started to reside in the hostels. Control group reported on severity of symptoms on two consecutive months while residing in the hostels. Each of the symptoms were assigned scores based on the severity (1= mild; 2 = moderate; 3= severe). Total scores of all the symptoms for each subject were done under two major categories namely physical and psychological. Result: In the study group the total score of physical and psychological symptoms of PMS were significantly higher while residing in the hostel compared to living at home ( 10.48 ± 8.32 vs. 13.31 ± 7.97, p < 0.0001; 5.59 ± 4.37 vs. 7.59 ± 4.49, p < 0.0001 respectively). In the control group there was no significant difference in severity of symptoms between two consecutive months. Conclusion: Change of place is having definite acute negative influence on physical and psychological symptoms of PMS.