Stress Levels and Charecteristics of Medical Faculty Students Undergoing Premenstrual Syndrome and its Association with Academic Achievements

Abstract

This research was conducted in order to determine the association between stress levels and charecteristics of Medical Faculty Students of University Sumatera Utara with Premenstrual Syndrome events reflected by academic achievements, which started on December 2011 until 2012 after obtaining a letter of consent issued by the the Ethical Comittee of the Health Section, Medical Faculty of Univeristy Suymatera Utara. The research used a "cross sectional design" by means of an analytical observational approach. The data were collected at one certain time from one subject group. The sample filtering procces were concluded by an interview and a specified lie test, conducted by using the L-MMPI scale, due to the self-rating nature of the instruments involved. The L-MMPI scale is an integrated part of the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) validity scale to assess honesty. If the results obtained from the L-MMPI scale questioner assessment concluded that the subjects tends to be dishonest, the subject would not be included furthermore in this research, which would be followed by the recruitment of another subject. The sample category were extracted based on the divison stated on the PSST standard reference according to the Montreal 2010 Consensus that includes Mild Premenstrual Syndrome and moderate-severe premenstrual syndrome, which finally observed an absence of PMDD. In this research, an amount of 50 subjects were obtained, 30 subjects were categorized as Mild Premenstrual Syndrome and the remaining 20 subjects into moderate-severe premenstrual syndrome, which was followed by conducting a statistical analysis on the obtained data. The author also attempted to present the variables of this research and test the association between the dependent and independant variables in order to obtain a comprehensive understanding concerning the relationship between stress levels, charecteristic factors that include age, BMI, Menarche age, menstrual cycle and menstrual lenghth to premenstrual events and its relation to academic achievements as a dependenmt variable. By using stress levels as a trigger to the occurence of Premenstrual Sydrome in Medical Faculty Students, chi-square tests obtained a p value of 0,000, showing a significant association between stress levels based on the adrenal stress degree on Premenstrual Syndrome. A p-value of 0,005 was obtained when determining the association betweem Premenstrual with Academic Index achievement of students undergoing Premenstrual Syndrome, which indicated a significant relationship between Premenstrual Syndrome and academic achievement. The obtained BMI charecteristic p-value was 0,203, obtained menarche age charecteristic p-value was 0,243, obtained menstrual length charecteristic p-value was 0,140, indicating the absence of a significant relationship between all the charecteristics stated above with Premenstrual Syndrome. By means of Spearman's Correlation, an association between BMI and adrenal stress levels of Medical Faculty students in University Sumatera Utara with academic index achievements was obtained, with the p-value of 0,048 and 0,000 respectively. Whereas the menstrual length charecteristic p-value obtained was 0,448. This study concluded an association between stress levels and Medical Faculty students charecteristics to Premstrual Syndrome, and between Premenstrual Syndrome with Academic achievement indexes of students undergoing Premenstrual Syndrome.

Key words: Premenstrual Syndrome, Adrenal Stress Levels, Academic achievements, L-MMPI scale.