ABSTRACT
Dysmenorrhea, or painful menstruation, is a common gynecological condition affecting more than half of all women. This chapter presents a study whose purpose was to investigate responsiveness to laboratory-induced pain in dysmenorrheic and nondysmenorrheic women over the course of the menstrual cycle. Sixty-five introductory psychology students volunteered for this study for course credit. Subjects were categorized as dysmenorrheic or nondysmenorrheic, according to their response to a question about the presence or absence of menstrual pain/cramps. The normal and regular 28-day menstrual cycle is usually divided into four phases: the menstrual phase, the follicular phase, the luteal and the premenstrual phase. Pain judgment in dysmenorrhea, as investigated in this study, does not lend itself to interpretation in terms of the adaptation levels model or the hypervigilance model. Dysmenorrheic women were neither less sensitive nor more sensitive than nondysmenorrheic women in their experience of cold pressor pain.
