The aims of this observational study were to assess the prevalence of menstrual pain in the Belgian population, and to examine how Belgian women deal with this kind of pain. We polled a sample of 540 women, selected at random and therefore considered to be representative of the Belgian female population aged 15 years and older. Sixteen percent of them claimed to suffer from menstrual pain sometimes. For the great majority (89%) of those who experience menstrual pain, dysmenorrhea occurs once each month. More than three out of four women described this pain as "severe," influencing daily life by putting them in a bad mood and causing irritability. Three out of four women said that they take analgesics for their dysmenorrhea. Nearly half of the analgesics taken are low doses of ibuprofen.
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