THE INTERRELATIONSHIP OF PREMENSTRUAL SYMPTOMS

The prospective symptom reports of women seeking treatment for premens trual symptoms and control subjects were investigated. In order to com pare symptom reports from premenstrual symptom sufferers and control s ubjects a method of combining and analysing prospectively collected me nstrual cycle symptom data is required. A technique that uses the time of onset of menses and the time of ovulation (as measured by urinary luteinizing hormone excretion) to standardize each cycle into 14 time points was developed. Summary factors were then empirically derived fr om data collected prospectively from 30 premenstrual symptom sufferers and 19 control subjects. Twenty-two mood symptoms were summarized int o a single factor and the 29 most frequently occurring physical sympto ms were summarized into two factors. Factor scores were calculated on the basis of these factors and the effect of time during the menstrual cycle on these scores examined. Both physical symptom factor scores i ncreased significantly in the luteal phase for both the premenstrual s ymptom sufferer group and the control group. The single mood factor sc ore increased significantly in the luteal phase for the premenstrual s ymptom sufferer group but not for the control group, suggesting that t he only qualitative difference between the groups was the presence of cyclic mood symptoms in the premenstrual symptom sufferer group. The p remenstrual symptom sufferer group recorded significantly higher score s on each of the three factors than the control group. The correlation between the scores on each of the factors over three cycles was high both in the follicular and luteal phase suggesting that these factor s cores provide a reproducible measure of menstrual cycle symptomatology .