Foot Reflexology on Premenstrual Syndrome among Late Adolescents in Selected Colleges

In India the total populations of adolescents are 253 million. The adolescents group needs special attention because this period is very crucial. Since, these are the shaping years in the life of an individual when major physical, psychological and behavioral changes take place and additional roles and responsibilities are expected from them. Menstruation is the noticeable sign of cyclic physiological uterine bleeding due to shedding of the endometrium. The major symptoms are pelvic discomfort, backache, fullness of breast, mastalgia, headache or depression just prior to menstruation. If these premonitory symptoms are predominant, these are grouped into a syndrome called premenstrual syndrome. Premenstrual Syndrome is used to describe a collection of predictable physical, cognitive, affective, and behavioral symptoms that arise episodically during the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle and resolve slowly at or within a few days of the onset of menstruation. A Quantitative research approach with QuasiNon equivalent pre-test post-test only design was adopted for this study. Purposive sampling technique was adopted for selecting the sample. 30 samples were purposively selected by using Premenstrual screening scale with subjects possessing minimum 10 premenstrual symptoms both in experimental and control group. The analysis of the results showed that in pre- test 14 (47%) of late adolescents had severe premenstrual symptoms, 11 (37%) had moderate symptoms and 05 (16%) had mild symptoms. In post- test 6 (20%) of late adolescents had severe symptoms and 11 (37%) had moderate symptoms and 13 (43%) had mild symptoms. In experimental group pre test mean score was 88.26 ±23.47 and the post test score was 68.5 ±27.13. The mean difference level of Premenstrual syndrome was 19.76 and the calculated ’t’ value was 6.10, which was higher than the table value 2.045 at p>0.05. Hence, the test was significant at the level of p>0.05. Therefore, the findings indicated that after Foot Reflexology in experimental group, there was significant decrease in level of premenstrual symptoms. Hence, H hypothesis was accepted. Foot reflexology has an effective role in reducing the level of Premenstrual syndrome for late adolescents.