FACTORS RELATED TO MEDICAL HELP-SEEKING IN WOMEN WITH MENSTRUAL DISCOMFORT

Dysmenorrhea, or painful menstruation, is frequently reported by women, particularly those women in the 17-25 yr age range. However, a small percentage of these women actually seek help for their menstrual discomfort from health professionals. This study delineated some factors which were related to women''s help-seeking behavior for menstrual discomfort. A model that has been used in general medical consultation was utilized in selecting the potentially discriminating variables, such as symptomatology, health beliefs and attitudes and maladjustment. The Ss were 383 college women between the ages of 17 and 25 yr. The independent variables were entered into discriminant function analysis on a random subsample (n = 192), the remainder of the sample (n = 191) was reserved for cross-validation. The results indicated that symptomatology and health beliefs were important determinants of help-seeking in both samples. The maladjustment variable was predictive of help-seeking for menstrual discomfort. Although the analyses resulted in a significant discrimination between those women who had sought help and those who had not, only 17-20% of the variance was accounted for. From this it was concluded that other variables needed to be considered, such as sociocultural factors and use of nonmedical coping strategies.