Ali Sarbazi - Student Research Committee, Qazvin University of Medical Sciences, Qazvin, Iran
Hamideh Pakniat - Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Kowsar Hospital, Qazvin University of Medical Sciences, Qazvin, Iran

Background and Aim : Dysmenorrhea is a common problem which is seen in both young and middle agewomen and it is presented with hypogastric or pelvic pain. This study was designed to evaluate the effectof vitamin D and ginger separately on dysmenorrhea.Methods : This double-blind clinical study was done in 2017 on 18- 30-year-old female students that weresuffered from moderate to severe dysmenorrhea. The participants were randomly divided into two groupsof administering vitamin D and ginger. Both groups received these supplements for 5 days with painkiller.Effect of these drugs on the severity of dysmenorrhea during two cycles of menstruation were collected byVAS and questionnaire. These data were analyzed with SPSS, ANOVA test and chi-score. The P value of0.05 is significant.Results : 120 patients were identified. 10 students were excluded from the study because of not cooperating.The mean of age of these patients was 21.34±1.85 and the mean of BMI was 22.4±52.24 kg/m2. Accordingto VAS, the mean of dysmenorrhea severity before receiving the drugs, was 7.12±0.23 and 7.11±0.9 forvitamin D and ginger group respectively that were not significant (P value=0.48). The mean ofdysmenorrhea severity after administering the drugs in the first month was 5.67±1.72 in vitamin D groupand 4.02±1.39 in ginger group that was significant (P value<0.001) and finally in the second month it was5.12±1.34 and 3.20±1.28 in vitamin D and ginger group respectively that was significant (P value< 0.001).Conclusion : Because of the several adverse effects of using NSAIDs that are recommended for treatingdysmenorrhea, our data show that vitamin D and ginger may be useful in decreasing the severity ofdysmenorrhea.

Dysmenorrhea,Ginger, Vitamin D