Relationship between personality and premenstrual symptoms: a study in five general practices

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry
• Gynecology
• Medical Sociology

Background:

• Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) symptom reporting varies significantly among individuals.
• The influence of personality traits on symptom reporting in women's health studies is not fully understood.
• Traditional data collection methods for premenstrual changes may introduce bias.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between personality subtypes (neurotic vs. stable) and the reporting of premenstrual changes.
• To compare symptom reporting accuracy between a daily health record and a retrospective checklist.
• To assess the impact of data collection methods on premenstrual syndrome research validity.

Main Methods:

• A large sample of women of childbearing age completed a daily health record and a retrospective checklist for premenstrual changes.
• Participants also completed a personality inventory to categorize them into neurotic or stable subtypes.
• Symptom reporting consistency was analyzed between the two data collection methods and across personality groups.

Main Results:

• Women in the neurotic subgroup reported more premenstrual changes than stable women, particularly on the retrospective checklist.
• Stable women demonstrated greater consistency in symptom reporting across both methods compared to neurotic women.
• Retrospective checklists showed a response bias favoring the identification of women with high neuroticism scores.

Conclusions:

• Personality traits, specifically neuroticism, significantly influence how women report premenstrual changes.
• The choice of data collection method interacts with personality, affecting the validity of premenstrual syndrome research.
• Traditional retrospective checklists may invalidate previous treatment trial findings due to response bias and underrepresentation of stable women.