Menstrual distress and acceptance of sexual role

This study relates symptoms of menstrual distress to the acceptance of sexual role. One hundred women were administered the Moos Menstrual Distress Questionnaire and a measure of how accepting each subject was of being a woman, having and nursing babies, menstruation as a normal routine, the dominant social roles of men, and sexuality. The Moos Sub-Scales of pain, concentration, autonomic reaction, and control correlated significantly and negatively with role acceptance, as did dysmenorrhea; premenstrual tension did not. The notion that acceptance of role is correlated with many symptoms of menstrual distress is supported, but the origin of these symptoms does not appear to be necessarily psychological.