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The relationship between mood, somatization, and alexithymia in premenstrual syndrome
A R Kuczmierczyk1, A H Labrum, C C Johnson
1Department of Psychiatry, Louisiana State University (LSU) Medical Center, New Orleans.
Abstract:
To examine the relationship between mood, somatization, and alexithymia in premenstrual syndrome (PMS), 66 women with a prospectively confirmed diagnosis of PMS were compared with a group of 49 non-PMS control women on a battery of self-administered tests measuring depression, anxiety, somatization, and alexithymia. Based on their scores on the Beck Depression Inventory, the PMS patients were subdivided into a high-depression and low-depression group and compared with the non-PMS control group on all test measures. Significantly greater somatization and alexithymia were reported in the high-depression PMS group, and no differences were found on any of the test measures between the low-depression PMS and non-PMS control groups.