Survey study, 1998
Do women who had premenstrual problems earlier have more mental health issues during menopause?
Yes. Women who reported premenstrual dysphoria were much more likely to have psychiatric symptoms at menopause. However, this is cross-sectional so we don't know if one caused the other.
What they did
Researchers first tested whether a questionnaire could reliably measure past premenstrual symptoms by giving it to 41 women twice, 4 to 8 weeks apart. Then they recruited 96 women from a menopause clinic and compared their recalled past premenstrual symptoms with their current psychiatric symptoms using two self-report questionnaires.
What they found
The premenstrual questionnaire showed good reliability (kappa values between 0.44 and 1.0 for all 36 items). There was a strong correlation between past premenstrual symptoms and current psychiatric symptoms (Spearman correlation 0.75, p less than 0.001). 47.9% of the women had psychiatric symptoms at the time of menopause.
What it means for you
Women with a history of premenstrual dysphoria are more likely to have mental health problems during menopause. The main limitation is that this is cross-sectional, so we don't know if premenstrual dysphoria caused the later symptoms. Also, all women came from one clinic.
47.9%
Women with psychiatric symptoms
0.75
Correlation strength
96
Study participants
About the study
- Original title
- Mental health among perimenopausal women attending a menopause clinic: possible association with premenstrual syndrome?
- Authors
- Novaes C, Almeida OP, de Melo NR
- Journal
- Climacteric : the journal of the International Menopause Society
- Year
- 1998
- Study design
- Survey study
- What was tested
- None
- Read the paper
- doi.org/10.3109/13697139809085553
Topics
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