Data collection tools
bleeding, hirsutism
BLEEDING, EXCESSIVE HAIR GROWTH, HIRSUTISM
Questionnaires for socio-demographic information, a checklist for recording tests, a menstrual cycle characteristics questionnaire, and the Ferriman–Gallwey scale were used to collect the data. The food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) was used to measure the nutritional status of the participants.The menstrual cycle characteristics questionnaire includes questions about the average interval of menstrual cycles and the average duration of bleeding in the last three months which are asked twice, once at the beginning of the study and then three months after the intervention.The Ferriman–Gallwey scale is also used in the same two time periods to evaluate hirsutism. This scale evaluates the state of hair growth in 9 areas of the body and assigns a score between zero and four according to the Likert scale. Zero means no hair and four means excessive hair growth. The highest possible score for any one participant in this questionnaire would be 36 and the lowest score would be zero [The FFQ used in this study included 67 types of food which were used to gather information about the intake of each food. The participants were asked about the frequency and amount of intake of each food during a day, week, and month. The data was eventually summarized into “how many times in the week the participant ate each type of food”, “how many grams of it was eaten each time”, and “how many grams of it was eaten each week”.To assess adherence to treatment, the participants were requested to record the drug use in a drug use checklist.