Association of Sedentary Lifestyle and Stress with Menstrual Irregularities

Abstract

Objective: To assess the effect of sedentary life style and stress on menstrual irregularities.

Materials and Methods: It was a cross sectional study conducted on 200 female doctors including undergraduate medical students of Lahore Medical and Dental College. Data was collected through convenient sampling during March 2022 to August 2022. Female doctors and female medical students were included in this study with normal BMI and between the age of 18-44 years. Data was analyzed through SPSS version 25. P value 0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results: In our study, 200 female doctors were included. Out of 200 doctors, 165 doctors were found to be in stressful condition of variable severity. Comparison of irregular periods was done between stressed and non-stressed doctors and it was found that among stressed group, 95(57.6%) doctors had irregular periods and among non-stressed there were only 2 (5.7%) who had irregular periods.  When chi square test was run to find the relationship of irregular periods with stressed and non-stressed doctors, there was a strong statistical association between two groups.

Conclusion: Our study presented that sedentary lifestyle and stress are associated with menstrual irregularities. Increase in sedentary lifestyle are among modifiable risk factors for menstrual cycle irregularities. It was a cross-sectional study and other risk factors were not studied in detail so relationship of different modifiable factors must be studied in future studies.