Retrosprective and prospective study of premenstrual symptomatology in the general population

Dysphoric symptoms stood out more than those characterised by a depressive state of mind and the expected pattern of premenstrual symptomatic increase and follicular decrease, although there was a distribution of follicular increase.

Abstract

This study consisted of three phases in which a cross method and a prospective one were combined in order to observe three consecutive menstrual cycles. The procedure of statistic analysis (C by Young) was not merely a comparison of scores. It also analysed the trend changes in the observations and their attributions to the premenstrual phase or the follicular phase. If attention is paid exclusively to the prospective analysis of the subsyndromic incidence figure, the general population data is 7%. The women in the retrospective premenstrual group stood out because of a greater number of symptoms, their seriousness and the degree of inference in their jobs and relationships with others, and because they even tended to avoid social situations. Cognitive vulnerability common to depressive disorders can’t have been verified. The prospective analysis verified that there was no adequate equivalence between retrospective and prospective information, that remarkable symptom variations are evident within different cycles in the same woman (consecutive or alternate), and the expected pattern of premenstrual symptomatic increase and follicular decrease, although there was a distribution of follicular increase. Dysphoric symptoms stood out more than those characterised by a depressive state of mind.