Effects of an educational programme on adolescents with premenstrual syndrome

An education program was developed and evaluated to determine its efficacy in increasing knowledge and decreasing the severity of symptoms of premenstrual syndrome (PMS). Participants from a sample of 94 schoolgirls aged between 14 and 18 years from four secondary schools in Hong Kong were assigned to either the experimental or control group. Immediately following the education program, the schoolgirls in the experimental group had significantly increased knowledge scores as measured by the Premenstrual Syndrome Knowledge Questionnaire. Three months following the education program, schoolgirls in the experimental group reported having a significant reduction in total PMS scores and three of the subscale scores as measured by a translated version of Abraham's Menstrual Symptom Questionnaire. In addition, no significant differences were found for the control group on pretest and post-test PMS scores suggesting that the education program could have been the source of the reduction in PMS symptoms of the experimental group of young adolescents girls.