Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation and cryotherapy in the treatment of students with primary dysmenorrhea: pilot study
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Abstract
Objective: To compare the effects of Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation (TENS) and cryotherapy in relieving painful symptoms in students with primary dysmenorrhea (PD). Methods: Cross-sectional and quantitative study, with 20 university women randomly divided into two groups: TENS Group (GT) whose participants were submitted to a 45 min TENS session with a frequency of 120 Hz and a pulse duration of 100 µs and Cryotherapy Group (CG), whose participants were submitted to a cryotherapy session for 20 min. Women with regular menstrual cycles, nulligravidas, without a report of pelvic disease, and with dysmenorrhea with pain levels between 4 and 10 during the first three days of menstruation were included. Those with contraindications to TENS or cryotherapy and who used drugs up to 24 h before the intervention were excluded. The participants' pain levels were recorded before and shortly after the intervention.Results: Women aged between 18 and 27 years (mean 22.8 ± 2.4 years) were evaluated. In addition to painful symptoms, all of them presented some other associated symptoms, the most common being diarrhea and fatigue (80%, each). The two-way ANOVA test of repeated measures considering group and evaluation factors revealed an effect only for the evaluation factor (p < 0.001) with no effect for the group/evaluation interaction (p = 0.09). Conclusion: TENS and cryotherapy are efficient resources for relieving pain symptoms in women with PD, with no superiority between the approaches.
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