Vol. 9, Issue 1, Part D (2023)

Background of the study: Dysmenorrhea is painful menstruation of sufficient magnitude so as to incapacitate day to day activities which is manifested by cramping pain on the ovulatory cycles along with nausea, vomiting, fatigue and fainting. It affects 17% - 80% in global level. This study mainly focuses on to assess the effectiveness of Jacobson relaxation technique and its associated factors.

Methodology: True experimental pre-test and post-test control group design was used. The nursing students of 17-21 age group were selected, 30 in experimental group and 30 in control group from selected institution, Bengaluru. Screening of sample was done by a brief questionnaire and the samples were selected using simple random sampling with 30 experimental and 30 in control group. Assessment of pain was done by Visual Analogue Scale for both pre-test and post-test. Pretest was conducted on the first day painful menstruation for both the groups, the experimental group received Jacobson’s relaxation technique for 20 minutes and post test was conducted after one hour of intervention. But control group did not receive any intervention. Analysis was done by using Frequency, Percentage, Paired and unpaired t test, Chi square test.

Result: The mean posttest dysmenorrhea score 1.821 of the experimental group was lower than the mean posttest dysmenorrhea score 2.828 of the control group with a ‘t’ value of 11.892. There was significant reduction in posttest level of dysmenorrhea score, in the experimental group compared to the control group, (MD= 3.286; P=0.001). There was no association between pretest dysmenorrhea score and selected demographic variables.

Conclusion: Most of the student nurses suffer from dysmenorrhea. Jacobson’s relaxation technique was effective in reducing the level of dysmenorrhea among student nurses.