A Comparative Study of Effectiveness of Psychological Intervention on Menstrual Distress among College Students

A Package of relaxation, systematic desensitization and an education program was developed and evaluated to determine its efficacy in decreasing the severity of Menstrual Distress. This study had involved both pretest and posttest as well a control group was also used to compare with. But still it's not purely an experimental design as there is no randomization. It is a quasi-experimental design. Seventy unmarried undergraduate college students were taken for the study. Extraneous variables such as age, family, monthly income, and health status were methodologically controlled. Moos Menstrual Distress Questionnaire, Spielberger's State and Trait Anxiety Inventory were administered. Among the sample, thirty five comprise the experimental group who were given the package of psychological intervention with grape juice and the other thirty five remained the control group to whom only grape juice was given without psychological intervention. The statistical analysis of the data was carried out with the paired‘t ‘ test technique to reveal significant positive impact of the intervention on the alleviation of menstrual distress which is seen in the group to whom the intervention was given and not in the other group. No significant differences were found in the control group on pretest and posttest menstrual distress which suggest that the intervention program have been the source of reduction in the menstrual distress of the experimental group.