Subjects were 31 self-identified dysmenorrheic sufferers (spasmodic and congestive types) who volunteered to participate in a 4 month long biofeedback research project. These women paid $25 and were free of medical and psychological disorders contraindicative to biofeedback treatment modalities. Women were randomly assigned to one of four of the following groups: temperature biofeedback (BF), transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS), biofeedback placebo control group (PC) and finally a waiting control (WC). The number of subjects in each group were 7, 8, 8 and 8, respectively. This investigation assessed the relative effectiveness of the TENS and thermal biofeedback training for alleviating menstrual pain. A one-way Kruskal-Wallis ANOVA revealed a significant difference between groups, H (3) = 11.29, P < .01. Multiple comparisons revealed that women in the BF group reduced their symptoms better than women in PC conditions. Further, a breakdown of the DSS components using a Kruskal-Wallis revealed significant findings for invalid hours, H (3) = 8.11, P < .05. BF subjects reduced their bed rest better than all other groups. However, TENS did worse than the PC and WC conditions. A one-way repeated ANOVA revealed nonsignificant differences between groups on measures of temperature and EMG. A discriminant functional analysis identified three variables to successfully predict 85% of cases who improved with treatment. Those variables were the MMPI K and SI scale and the number of pills reported on the RSS prior to treatment. Possible explanations for unexpected nonsignificant findings were explored for DSS components and TENS women requiring statistically significant additional bed rest than PC and WC conditions. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 42-06, Section: B, page: 2517. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1981.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_74543 |
| Contributors | BRECKENRIDGE, LORRAINE ELIZABETH., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 126 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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