The Prevalence of Menstrual Disorders in Psychiatric Patients

Abstract

A recent survey (Coppen and Kessel, 1963) of a random sample of 500 women from the general population investigated the prevalence of common menstrual symptoms and their relationship to personality as assessed by the Maudsley Personality Inventory (M.P.I.). The results showed that certain of these common symptoms have a positive and significant correlation with the Neuroticism scale of the M.P.I.; this was particularly notable for the symptoms of the premenstrual syndrome, i.e. premenstrual depression, irritability, swelling, etc., as well as for menstrual irregularity. Dysmenorrhoea, to the contrary of previous reports, showed no such association with neuroticism in this general population sample. The age and parity of the subjects were also found to influence the prevalence of many of these symptoms.