In Clinical

Follow this topic

Bookmark

Record learning outcomes

Smoking can predispose women to €repeated, distressing€ chronic dysmenorrhoea, a new Australian study suggests.

Researchers followed 9,067 women between 2000 and 2012. At baseline, approximately 25 per cent of women reported dysmenorrhoea and 26 per cent were current smokers.

Fourteen per cent of the women who reported period pain had chronic dysmenorrhoea. Compared with neversmokers and after adjusting for socio-demographic, lifestyle and reproductive factors, ex-smokers and current smokers were 33 and 41 per cent respectively more likely to have chronic dysmenorrhoea.

The younger people started smoking the greater their risk of developing chronic dysmenorrhea: a 59 per cent increase for those who started at 13 years of age or younger and a 50 per cent increase for those who started at 14 or 15 years. Those who started smoking at 16 years or older showed a 26 per cent increased risk compared to those who have never smoked.

The authors suggest that the link to dysmenorrhoea helps support smoking prevention programmes that target young women, especially teenagers. Whether smoking cessation alleviates dysmenorrhoea requires further study.