Occupational Stress and Dysmenorrhea in Women Working in Cotton Textile Mills.
The authors conducted a cross-sectional study of 895 never-smoking female textile workers, aged 20-40 years, employed in three cotton textile mills in Anhui Province, China, to assess the association of self-reported occupational stress with dysmenorrhea. Stress was assessed by means of a questionnaire incorporated into a larger, general health survey of textile workers. Dysmenorrhea was defined as abdominal/pelvic pain during menses. Proportions of no/low, moderate, and high levels of occupationally-related emotional stress among all the subjects were 56%, 23%, and 21%, respectively. The overall prevalence of dysmenorrhea in the population was 59.7%. The adjusted odds ratios of dysmenorrhea for women who had moderate and high levels of occupational stress relative to those with low levels were 1.6 (95% CI:1.1-2.2) and 2.3 (95% CI:1.6-3.4), suggesting an exposure-response relationship. The estimated odds ratio based on assigned scores (0, 1, and 2 assigned for no/low, moderate, and high degrees of occupational stress) was 1.5 (95% CI:1.3-1.8). In the analyses stratified by the mills and the women's job titles, a positive association was found in all groups. The association remained significant (OR = 1.6, 95% CI:1.3-2.0) when the analysis was restricted to those women with only one reported livebirth pregnancy. The findings suggest that high degrees of occupational stress predispose female textile workers to dysmenorrhea.
Christiani
DC
Harvard School of Public Health, 665 Huntington Avenue, I-1405, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Niu
T
Xu
X