Body constitution and dysmenorrhea: a study on university students in Malaysia

Dysmenorrhea is a common gynecologic condition among women. The relation between the menstrual pain and the Chinese medicine body constitution had never being studied in Malaysia, especially among students in higher education institute. In this study, a survey was carried out to analyze the relationship between the occurrence of dysmenorrhea among female students and the Chinese medicine body constitution. A cross-sectional descriptive was conducted on 201 female students. The information were obtained via questionnaires. The result analysis indicated 80% of the respondents experienced dysmenorrhea, with 79.6% of them had biased constitutions. The top three biased constitutions in the dysmenorrhea group were qi deficiency constitution, qi stagnation constitution, and yin deficiency constitution. Through this study, the relation between dysmenorrhea and the biased Chinese medicine body constitution was confirmed.