Symptoms of premenstrual syndrome in university students and their methods to cope with it

This is adescriptive cross-sectional study which is conducted to identify the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) in university students and the methods of students to cope with it. The study's population was composed of 1411 female student registered to the Kırklareli University departments of Midwifery, Nursing, Philosophy, Turkish Language and Literature in 2016-2017 academic year, sample selection was not preferred and the sample of 696 volunteer students whom we could get in contact were acquired. "Personal Information Form", "Premenstrual Syndrome Scale (PMSS)" were employed to collect data, and we employed SPSS 22 statistical software to analyze the data. 41.5% of the students ranged between 19-20 ages, their mean score in PMSS was 113.16±37.39 and PMS prevalence was 49.4%. The incidence rate of scale sub-dimensions was 52.3% for depressive affect, 44.5% for anxiety, 48% for fatigue, 47.8% for anger, 42.4% for depressive thoughts, 51.6% for pain, 53.2% for appetite fluctuations, 50.3% for sleep fluctuations, 46.7% for swelling. The people who study in Philosophy department, smoke and consume alcohol a lot, have chronic disease, are on medication for psychiatric diseases or for sleep problems, do not take care of their daily diet, consume fast-food, fatty-sugary foods and do not adopt a fruit based diet, believe they have PMS, have menstrual irregularity and whose menstrual cycle is 35 days or more, have difficulties during menstrual periods and have physical and physical ailments, have PMS history in their families, have a pain, go to doctor and take medicine during period had higher mean scores in PMSS and most of its sub-dimensions compared to others (p<0.05). 58% of the students with PMS stated that they do relaxation exercises as a coping method. Keywords: Coping Methods, Premenstrual Syndrome, Symptom, University Students