Background: Menstrual pain is very common amongst young women. Despite the significant impact that\nmenstrual pain has on academic attendance and performance, social activities and quality of life, most young\nwomen do not seek medical treatment but prefer to use self-care; commonly OTC analgesic medications and rest.\nMany women do not get significant pain relief from these methods, therefore other low cost, easy to learn self-care\nmethods may be a valuable approach to management.\nThis review and meta-analysis examines the evidence for participant lead self-care techniques.\nMethods: A search of Medline, PsychINFO, Google Scholar and CINAHL was carried out in September 2017.\nResults: Twenty-three trials including 2302 women were eligible and included in the meta-analysis. Studies\nexamined self-delivered acupressure, exercise and heat as interventions. Risk of bias was unclear for many domains.\nAll interventions showed a reduction in menstrual pain symptoms; exercise (g = 2.16, 95% CI 0.97 to 3.35) showed\nthe largest effect size, with heat (g = 0.73, 95% CI 0.06 to 1.40) and acupressure (g = 0.56, 95% CI 0.10 to 1.03)\nshowing more moderate effect sizes. Exercise (g = 0.48, 95% CI 0.12 to 0.83) and heat (g = 0.48, 95% CI 0.10 to 0.87),\nwere more effective than analgesics in reducing pain intensity, whereas acupressure was significantly less effective\n(g = - 0.76, 95% CI -1.37 to - 0.15).\nConclusion: Exercise showed large effects, while acupressure and heat showed moderate effects in reducing\nmenstrual pain compared to no treatment. Both exercise and heat are potential alternatives to analgesic\nmedication. However, difficulties in controlling for non-specific effects, along with potential for bias, may influence\nstudy findings.
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