Objective: To study the effectiveness of performing swimming on the severity of symptoms of premenstrual syndrome (PMS).
Materials and methods: A randomized controlled trial that was conducted on 70 women diagnosed with PMS divided randomly into two equal groups: Group I included women who engaged into exercise and group II controls. Daily Symptoms Report was filled at the start and at end of the study.
Results: At the posttreatment evaluation, there was a highly significant difference between the study and control groups regarding anxiety (0 vs. 5), depression (3 vs. 12), tension (3 vs. 12), mood changes (0 vs. 7), feeling out of control (0 vs. 7), weak coordination (0 vs. 10), confusion (2 vs. 9), headache (3 vs. 15), tiredness (4 vs. 12), pains (5 vs. 11), tenderness of the breast (2 vs. 8), and cramps (6 vs. 17) (P < 0.001), but no such difference was found regarding irritability, insomnia, crying, swelling, or food craving. Regarding the percentage of symptoms changes, there was a highly significant difference between the study and control groups regarding anxiety (- 33.3 vs. 0), depression (- 79.29 vs. 15.56), tension (- 81.18 vs. - 6.79), mood changes (- 33.33 vs. 0), feeling out of control (- 91.67 vs. 0), weak coordination (- 100 vs. - 9.55), sleeplessness (- 71.43 vs. 0), confusion (- 84.17 vs. - 9.55), headache (- 77.78 vs. - 6.94), fatigue (- 65.69 vs. 0), pains (- 65.83 vs. - 8.93), breast tenderness (- 87.87 vs. 4.55), cramps (- 60.77 vs. 4.55), and swellings (- 55.05 vs. - 8.33), but no such difference was found regarding irritability, crying, or food craving.
Conclusions: There is beneficial effect of swimming on most of the physical and psychological symptoms of PMS.
Clinical trial registry no: NCT03264612.
Keywords: Aerobic exercise; Premenstrual syndrome; Swimming.