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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

Front. Reprod. Health
Sec. Adolescent Reproductive Health and Well-being
Volume 6 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/frph.2024.1394978
This article is part of the Research Topic Menstrual Pain View all articles

What is known about adolescent dysmenorrhoea in (and for) community health settings?

Provisionally accepted
  • 1 University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom
  • 2 Nuffield Department of Primary Health Care Health Sciences, Medical Sciences Division, University of Oxford, Oxford, England, United Kingdom
  • 3 Nuffield Department of Women's and Reproductive Health, Medical Sciences Division, University of Oxford, Oxford, England, United Kingdom

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Dysmenorrhoea affects many adolescents with significant impacts on education and well-being. In the UK, most of the adolescents who seek care (and many never do), will do so through general practice (primary care). There is little evidence about community experiences or management of adolescent dysmenorrhoea or specific resources to support shared-decision making in general practice, although there are evidence-based treatments to offer. Primary care encounters also represent potential opportunities to consider whether the possibility of underlying or associated health conditions contributing to symptoms of dysmenorrhoea, but there is little epidemiological evidence about prevalence from within community health settings to inform this. This mixed-methods narrative synthesis collates community and specialist evidence, with a community health perspective from 320 papers. We highlight areas of tension or conflicted evidence relevant to primary care alongside areas of uncertainty and research gaps identified through this synthesis with input from lived experience advisers.

    Keywords: Adolescent dysmenorrhoea, Menstrual pain, General Practice, primary care Font: Not Italic, Font color: Auto Font: Not Italic Font: Not Italic Font: Not Italic Font: Not Italic Font: Not Italic Font: Not Italic Font: Not Italic

    Received: 02 Mar 2024; Accepted: 31 May 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Dixon, Hirst, Taghinejadi, Duddy, Vincent and Ziebland. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Sharon Dixon, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom

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