Irregular Periods Can Disrupt Sleep Schedule? A Cross-Sectional Study on The Effects of Menstrual Regularity of Quality of Sleep

Abstract

Menstruation is an essential part of the monthly routine of any woman in the reproductive age group. The menstrual pattern of an individual has significant impact over quality of life she leads. An important factor in this is the pattern of her sleep. The present study investigates the effect of the menstrual pattern of a woman over her sleep. A 21 item Questionnaire was designed covering various aspects of the menstrual pattern of the individual. Questions studied dysmenorrhea, oligomenorrhea, heavy menstrual bleeding etc. For assessing the sleep pattern, the Sleep Quality Scale was used. It is a 28 item Questionnaire that measures sleep quality in the general population. Various aspects of sleep including day time symptoms, problems in maintaining sleep etc are included. After taking informed consent, 135 women were interviewed using these questionnaires based on what they experienced since last one month. After collecting the data, they were scored and analyzed through MS Excel. It was observed that factors like Menarche before 10 years of age, Heavy menstrual bleeding (using more than 6 tampons or pads per day), Intense bleeding in the first few days of menstruation, Cycle duration longer than 38 days, Individuals with Cycle-to-cycle variation of 11–20 days, Presence of clots in menstrual blood, Dysmenorrhea, Recent vaginal discharge in the lower genital tract and use of contraceptive pills seemed to be related with increased sleep problems. On the other hand, bleeding duration of more than 8 days and use of intrauterine devices (IUDs) seemed to reduce sleep problems. PCOD, Polymenorrhea, Absence of menstruation (not due to pregnancy or lactation) and Oligomenorrhea didn't seem to have any effect on sleep. This study was mainly done on the menstruating age group. The quality of sleep after menopause, can't be studied through this. Future scope of research lies in doing similar study on a different sample size or on a wider population including post-menopausal women..