COMPARISON OF PERCEIVED STRESS, COPING STRATEGIES AND SOCIAL SUPPORT BETWEEN GIRL STUDENTS WITH PREMENSTRUAL SYNDROME (PMS), PREMENSTRUAL DYSPHORIC DISORDER (PMDD) AND NORMAL GROUP

Background & Aim: Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) consists of physiological, cognitive and behavioral changes that periodically occur in luteal phase of menstrual in women. It is defined as premenstrual dysphoric disorder if it leads to a disruption in family, social and work activities.  Material & Methods: In order to comparison of perceived stress, coping strategy, and social support between girl students with premenstrual syndrome (PMS), premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) and normal group, 200 students of Malayer University were randomly selected in the year 2017. A questionnaire were designed and filled out that consists of screening test of premenstrual syndrome, perceived stress, coping strategies and social support scales. The screening test detected 100 people with PMS, 21 people with PMDD, and 76 people in normal group. Data were analyzed with multivariable analysis of variance (MANOVA). Results: Results showed students with PMS, PMDD and normal group had significantly different scores in coping strategies in emotion-based coping (F= 7.26, p < 0.01), distancing (F= 6.65, p < 0.01), and flight-avoidance coping (F= 5.94, p < 0.01) than normal group.  Pos hoc test of Tukey showed that PMDD group has significantly higher scores in emotion-based strategy than normal group (p < 0.01). In flight- avoidance strategy, PMS group was higher than normal group (p < 0.05) and PMDD group had higher levels than PMS group (p < 0.01). In distancing strategy, PMDD group had significantly higher levels of scores than PMS group (p < 0.05) and normal group (p < 0.01). There was no significant defferences in pecieved stress and social support between sample groups. Conclusion & Discussion: Research findings showed that coping strategies had significantly with PMS and PMDD, so the necessity of psychological interventions would result in healthy consequences. Regarding the same circumstances of dormitory, there was no significant defferences in pecieved stress and social support between sample groups.