How common is PMS in medical students and how is it linked to lifestyle?

Background: Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) is a common feature of female medical students and it can be exacerbated by lifestyle habits in hostels, academic stress, insomnia, physical and convenient-food consumption. Objective: To establish the level of PMS in female students of hostellites who are medical students and whether it relates to lifestyle factors. Study Settings & Duration: Central Park Medical College, Lahore from 2nd July 2024 to 1st January 2025. Procedures: A cross-sectional design was used, with 360 female medical students staying at the hostels between the ages of 18-27 years. The criteria to assess PMS were based on Premenstrual Symptoms Screening Tool. Lifestyle factors were duration of sleep, physical activity, perceived stress, consumption of fast-food, consumption of caffeine, screen time, BMI, and family history. Precision with the certain confidence interval 95, chi-square/Fisher test and multiple regression of the logistic were carried out. Results: PMS was identified in 246/360 (68.3%; 95% CI 63.3-73.1%). Among affected students, 112 (45.5%) had mild and 134 (54.5%) had moderate-to-severe PMS. Perceived stress, sleep less than 7 hours/night, lack of physical activity, high consumption of fast-food and family history of PMS had a direct relationship with PMS. High stress, short sleep, low physical activity and frequent fast-food intake were adjusted odds ratios of 58.52, 11.69, 6.07 and 6.79 respectively. Model AUC was 0.929. Conclusion: PMS was very common in hostellite female medical students and was strongly related with lifestyle factors that could be changed such as stress, sleep, activity and diet.

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