Abstract
Objectives: To assess the evidence for the effectiveness of yoga in the management of menstrual pain and the symptoms associated with dysmenorrhea. Methods: A search was conducted using CINAHL, the Cochrane library, Embase, PsycINFO, PubMed, and KoreaMed electronic databases to identify randomized controlled trials (RCTs) reported effects of yogic intervention on dysmenorrhea published in any language between January 1966 and October 2014. Quality assessment was conducted using the Cochrane risk of bias tool. Results: Two potential trials were identified of which two were included in the review. Quality critical appraisal had low or moderate risk of bias. The available data could only be included as a narrative description. A significant difference was observed between experimental and control groups in pain intensity and pain duration (p<0.05) and thyroid-stimulating hormone (p<0.002), follicle-stimulating hormone (p<0.02), luteinizing hormone (p<0.001), and prolactin (p<0.02) were decreased significantly in the experimental group, compared with the control group. Conclusions: There is evidence from two RCTs that yoga interventions may be favorable effective for dysmenorrhea. However the findings should be interpreted with caution due to the number of small RCTs and quality limitation partly. Therefore further high quality RCTs are required to investigate the hypothesis that yoga alleviates menstrual pain and the symptoms associated with dysmenorrhea, to confirm and further comprehend the effects of standardized yoga programs in dysmenorrhea.
Highlights
The prevalence of dysmenorrhea varied in range from 25% of menstruating women to 90% of adolescent females or 45% to 95% of any age, dysmenorrhea seems to be the most common gynecological condition in women, regardless of age, race, or nationality [1,2,3,4]
The aim of this review is to assess the evidence for the effectiveness of yoga in the management of menstrual pain and the symptoms associated with dysmenorrhea
858 studies were excluded because there was no yoga intervention
Summary
The prevalence of dysmenorrhea varied in range from 25% of menstruating women to 90% of adolescent females or 45% to 95% of any age, dysmenorrhea seems to be the most common gynecological condition in women, regardless of age, race, or nationality [1,2,3,4]. Dysmenorrhea is a critical global health issue in reproductive age women, as it causes school absences, poor academic performance, lost work time, and has a significantly negative affect on daily activities [5,6]. Dysmenorrhea is generally defined as difficult monthly flow and describes painful menstruation of uterine origin [2,7]. Dysmenorrhea can be classified into two subtypes. The pathogenesis of primary dysmenorrhea is commonly explained by “an abnormal increase in vasoactive prostaglandins originating in secretory endometrium and menstrual fluid, which may induce myometrial hyperactivity and uterine tissue ischemia and pain” [8,9]. Secondary dysmenorrhea can occur many years after menarche and is associated with identifiable pelvic pathology such as endometriosis [8,9]
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