http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4453-507X
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ABSTRACT
During the premenstrual phase, psychological and physiological changes can occur, which are associated with different levels of disability. When they appear with Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD), different coping strategies may be used by women to deal with premenstrual changes. Currently no German measure exists for assessing premenstrual symptom-related coping strategies. Therefore, we developed the Premenstrual Change Coping Inventory (PMS-Cope). First, the 33-item questionnaire was tested with an exploratory factor analytic approach (EFA) in a sample of 150 women prospectively diagnosed with PMDD or severe Premenstrual Syndrome from August 2013 until March 2016. The EFA resulted in a 12-item scale with a two-factor structure: “seeking positive affect-inducing activities” and “seeking support”; Cronbach`s alpha of 0.73 and 0.71, respectively, demonstrated good reliability for both factors. Confirmatory factor analysis based on a second sample of 89 women conducted from May 2016 until June 2016 confirmed the two-factor structure. Additionally, a potential third factor “healthcare use behavior” was tested with an EFA. For the three-factor solution, satisfactory Cronbach’s alpha values (0.70–0.72) were detected. The PMS-Cope was shown to be a valid, reliable, and economic measure. In future research, cross validations and confirmatory factor analyses with the three-factor solution should be conducted.
Informed consent
All procedures were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all participants for being included in the study.
Acknowledgments
We thank George Vlaescu for computer programming and website support. A special word of thanks goes to Dr. Carolyn Janda for support in implementing this study and Mareike Dreier, Sophia Wittine and Eva Hüttenrauch for assistance in the data collection.