Effect of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing on intensity of primary dysmenorrhea: a randomized controlled trial

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Valedi, S, Chegini, V, MoradiBaglooei, M, Ranjbaran, M, Griffiths, MD ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8880-6524 and Alimoradi, Z, 2025. Effect of eye movement desensitization and reprocessing on intensity of primary dysmenorrhea: a randomized controlled trial. Discover Mental Health, 5: 132. ISSN 2731-4383

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/s44192-025-00265-8

Abstract

Background: A common disorder among women during reproductive age is dysmenorrhea. It has a chronic cyclic nature and a positive association with psychological distress.

Aim: The aim of the present study was to determine the effect of desensitization based on eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) on dysmenorrhea intensity.

Methods: A randomized controlled trial comprising 88 female university students randomly divided in two groups of intervention (EMDR therapy for two 60-min sessions, and control) was conducted based on the balanced blocks randomization method. The main outcome assessed was intensity of dysmenorrhea. Other outcomes were menstrual pain duration, menstrual distress, and the need to take analgesics. All outcomes were assessed at three time points (before intervention, and one and two months after the intervention). Data were evaluated using analysis of variance for repeated measures, Cochran test, and McNemar test (at p < .05).

Results: Repeated measures ANOVA–ANCOVA analysis indicated that EMDR significantly reduced dysmenorrhea intensity in the intervention group compared to controls at both follow-ups (p < 0.001), with a large group-by-time interaction effect (F = 16.99, p < 0.001). Pain duration also decreased significantly at the second two-month follow-up (p = 0.003). Menstrual phase distress showed marked improvements post-intervention (p < 0.001). The need to take analgesics was also reduced for participants in EMDR group compared to control group (p < .001).

Conclusion: These findings suggest EMDR is effective in alleviating key dysmenorrhea symptoms, particularly pain intensity, menstrual phase-specific distress, and the need to take analgesics.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Discover Mental Health
Creators:	Valedi, S., Chegini, V., MoradiBaglooei, M., Ranjbaran, M., Griffiths, M.D. and Alimoradi, Z.
Publisher:	Springer
Date:	29 August 2025
Volume:	5
ISSN:	2731-4383
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1007/s44192-025-00265-8 DOI 2490380 Other
Rights:	© the author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Jonathan Gallacher
Date Added:	02 Sep 2025 15:00
Last Modified:	02 Sep 2025 15:00
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/54279