%0 Journal Article %T Effects of Calcium and its Combination with Magnesium on the Severity of Menstrual Symptoms in the Students with Dysmenorrhea %J Journal of Guilan University of Medical Sciences %V 22 %N 88 %U http://journal.gums.ac.ir/article-1-598-en.html %R %D 2014 %K Calcium, Dysmenorrhea, Magnesium, Menstruation, %X Abstract Introduction: Psychological and physical symptoms sometimes cause disturbances in daily and social activities. There are limited reports on the effects of calcium and magnesium on menstrual symptoms Objective: To determine the effectiveness of combined calcium and magnesium and only calcium on the severity of menstrual symptoms in the students with dysmenorrhea. Materials and Methods: In this triple- blind trial, 63 students with moderate or severe menstrual pain severity were randomly allocated into two intervention and one control groups (receiving 600 mg calcium carbonate alone or combined with 300 mg magnesium stearate, or placebo from 15th cycle day to pain relieving day on the following cycle). All participants reported their severity of eight menstrual symptoms (cramp, headache, backache, foot pain, depression, irritability, general pain and abdominal pain with symptom severity scale) in 2 days before and 2 days after beginning of menstrual bleeding during four continuous cycles (2 cycles before and 2 cycles after intervention). The data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA and ANCOVA tests. Results: After intervention, severity of total and each of the symptoms (adjusted for baseline) in both intervention groups was significantly less than that in the control group (p<0.001 in all except general pain which was p=0.012). Effect size d was 1.69 for the combined calcium and magnesium and 1.46 for only calcium, on the total symptom score indicating a large effect. There was no significant difference between the intervention groups regarding severity of any symptoms, except abdominal pain which was less in the group treated with combined calcium and magnesium. No side effect was reported. Conclusion: Both combined calcium and magnesium and only calcium seem to be effective in alleviating the severity of menstrual symptoms in the students with primary dysmenorrhea. %> http://journal.gums.ac.ir/article-1-598-en.pdf %P 83-92 %& 83 %! %9 Research %L A-10-36-467 %+ %G eng %@ 2383-4307 %[ 2014