Prevalence, Severity and Factors Related to Mastalgia among Women Referring to Health Centers Affiliated with Shiraz University of Medical Sciences

Vaziri, Farideh; Samsami, Alamtaj; Rahimi, Zahra; Rastgardoost, Negin; Nick, Narjes

Prevalence, Severity and Factors Related to Mastalgia among Women Referring to Health Centers Affiliated with Shiraz University of Medical Sciences

Document Type : Original Articles

Authors

Farideh Vaziri ¹

Alamtaj Samsami ²

Zahra Rahimi ³

Negin Rastgardoost ³

Narjes Nick ⁴

¹ Department of Midwifery, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran;

² Infertility Research Center, School of Medicine, Gynecologist, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran;

³ Student Research Committee, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran;

⁴ Department of Community Health Nursing, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran

Abstract

Background: Mastalgia is a common problem among women. Severe mastalgia can have a negative impact on sexual, physical and sleep activities and behaviors. Regarding the absence of a study on the prevalence and severity of mastalgia in southern Iran, the current study was conducted. Methods: This is an analytical cross-sectional study. The participants were women who referred to health centers affiliated to Shiraz University of Medical Sciences in Shiraz. The inclusion criteria were willingness to participate in the study, not being pregnant and breastfeed. The severity of breast pain was calculated with visual analog scale. The data of 845 questionnaires were analyzed with SPSS software. Results: The participants’ age ranged from 15-50 years; the mean age was 32.84±9.49 years. Among 845 participants, 33% (279) of them had experienced mastalgia in the past three months. Among those who had experienced mastalgia, 81% (226) had cyclical mastalgai and 19% (53) had non-cyclical mastalgia. The mean of pain score was 4.32±2.38 and 12.9% of the participants (36) had pain scores of 8 to 10. The impact of mastalgia on daily and sexual activities and sleep behaviors was reported 9.31% (26), 12.66% (29) and 13.97% (36), respectively. Conclusion: Results of this study showed that the spread of mastalgia in women referred to health centers affiliated to Shiraz University of Medical Sciences is lower than that reported in western studies and has lesser effects on their daily, sexual and sleep activities and behaviors. We suggest further studies about mastalgia in others locations in Iran.

Keywords

Keywords: Mastalgia

Breast pain

Cyclical mastalgia

Iran

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