Psychological aspects of premenstrual symptoms

Abstract

This article reviews the literature linking psychological processes with the presence and severity of premenstrual symptoms, identifying the areas of agreement and disagreement. An exploratory study which measured menstrual distress, state and trait anxiety, and depressive mood in women suffering from the premenstrual syndrome (PMS group, n = 15) revealed that their symptoms were restricted to the second half of the menstrual cycle. This cycle-related pattern of responses was not found in women who did not fulfil the criteria for inclusion in the PMS group (MD group, n = 5). Furthermore, the trait-anxiety scores of the MD group were clearly higher than those of the PMS and control groups. The results suggest that women with premenstrual symptoms do not form a homogeneous group, and that further studies should incorporate a strict definition of the premenstrual syndrome in order to distinguish this syndrome from conditions in which the symptoms are not limited to the second half of the menstrual cycle.