The association between age at menarche and depression: A systematic review and meta-analysis with meta-regression

The existing literature presents conflicting findings regarding the relationship between Age At Menarche (AAM) and depression. Thus, to address this gap, this systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to evaluate current evidence to clarify the association between AAM and depression.

Medline (PubMed), Scopus, Embase, Web of Science, and Google Scholar were searched from 2000 until June 2024 to include cross-sectional, case-control, and cohort studies. The quality of the evidence was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale (NOS) instrument. The odds ratio (OR) of depression and its 95 % Confidence Interval (95 % CI) were calculated using the random effects model and inverse variance method. The protocol is registered in PROSPERO, number CRD42024551838.

From a total of 2175 search records, 13 studies were included comprising 434,838 participants with NOS scores ranging from 7 to 9. The present findings showed that early menarche is associated with significantly higher odds of depression compared to both normative AAM (OR = 1.36, 95 % CI: 1.20‒1.53) and late AAM (OR = 1.52, 95 % CI 1.22‒1.90). Also, females with later menarche had lower odds of depression compared to females with normal AAM (OR = 0.91, 95 % CI 0.76‒1.09); however, this association was not statistically significant.

The present findings demonstrated that early menarche is associated with elevated odds of depression compared to females of both normative AAM and late AAM.