Premenstrual Syndrome Prevalence and Fluctuation over Time: Results from a French Population-Based Survey

Abstract

Objectives: To explore the experience of reproductive-age women in the French population with premenstrual syndrome (PMS) by estimating perceived symptom prevalence, identifying risk factors, and quantifying the burden of symptoms. This study also assesses the stability of the PMS diagnosis over a 1-year period of follow-up. Conclusions: More women report suffering from distressing premenstrual symptoms than are captured by strict premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) diagnostic criteria. The impact of PMS symptoms on women appears to fluctuate over time, however, producing greater variability in the syndrome than previously recognized. Clinicians should be mindful of high intraindividual variability in the syndrome when advising patients about long-term management. 31

Stress and Premenstrual Symptoms in Reproductive-Aged Women

“…While most studies examined lifetime cumulative stress described as daily (Rasheed & Al-Sowielem, 2003) or chronic stress (Gannon, Luchetta, Pardie, & Rhodes, 1989), some focused on acute stress, described as a stressful event or change within the preceding month (Gollenberg et al, 2010) or year (Potter et al, 2009). Most researchers neglected to mention the sources of stress but described it as perceived stress (Gollenberg et al, 2010) or mental stress (Klatzkin et al, 2006).…”

“…Studies assessing susceptibility to stress used Swedish Universities' Scales of Personality (Gingnell et al, 2010) to examine neurotic personality and the Objective and Subjective Event Checklist (Gonda et al, 2010) to assess altered perception about various life events. Sometimes, stress was inferred from the categorical variable (yes or no) of having experienced a traumatic or stressful event (Potter et al, 2009). …”

“…These frequent changes in terms and absence of consensus in definition or diagnostic criteria resulted in a wide variation in what the symptoms are and the prevalence data ranging from 2% to 90% world-wide (Hong et al, 2012;Potter, Bouyer, Trussell, & Moreau, 2009;Ramcharan, Love, Fick, & Goldfien, 1992). The definitions of PMS from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the International Society for Premenstrual Disorders (ISPMD) have been cited as balanced and frequently are used to describe the group of premenstrual symptoms in the literature (Kadian & O'Brien, 2012).…”

“…The definitions of PMS from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and the International Society for Premenstrual Disorders (ISPMD) have been cited as balanced and frequently are used to describe the group of premenstrual symptoms in the literature (Kadian & O'Brien, 2012). In this study, the term "PMS" is used based on their definitions: the symptoms may be either somatic and psychological or both, must peak at 5 to 7 days prior to menstruation and remit during the follicular phase or the onset of menstruation, must recur in at least two cycles, must significantly affect women's lives, and should be prospectively rated (Lustyk, Douglas, Shilling, & Woods, 2012;Potter et al, 2009;Shulman, 2010). Although PMS commonly occurs about a week before the next menstrual flow, it may or may not occur during the luteal phase (following ovulation) (Prior, Vigna, Schechter, & Burgess, 1990).…”

Internet-Based Cognitive-Behavioural Intervention for Women with Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder: A Randomized Controlled Trial

“…Less severe but clinically relevant premenstrual disorders are however more frequent with prevalence rates of 13–19% [for a detailed overview, see 5]. A recent population-based study in France resembles these findings with rates of 12–13% for premenstrual symptoms significantly impacting everyday life [6]. …”