Concordance of perimenstrual symptoms across two cycles

Abstract

The prevalence of perimenstrual symptoms usually is based on reports for one menstrual cycle; the consistency of symptoms across cycles is ignored. The purpose of this investigation was to determine perimenstrual symptoms reported concordantly for two menstrual cycles in a group of 63 presumably healthy women reporting symptoms in health diaries over 2 months. There were only nine symptoms for each of the menstrual and premenstrual phases reported by the same woman across both cycles. Furthermore, concordance of perimenstrual symptom reporting across the two cycles was significant only for backache (kappa = .636, p less than .0001), headache (kappa = .849, p less than .001), and cramps (kappa = .899, p less than .001) in the menstruum and for backache (kappa = 0.123, p less than .0001), cold sweats (kappa = .500, p less than .0001), fatigue (kappa = .135, p less than .0001), depression (kappa = .268, p less than .0002), and tension (kappa = .320, p less than .0001) in the premenstruum. Several symptoms showed high prevalence during the remainder of the cycle which might contribute to the lack of concordance. These data imply that prevalence estimates based on only one menstrual cycle may be inaccurate overall and inadequate as baseline or followup estimates by which to evaluate therapeutic intervention.

Health Diaries in Nursing Research and Practice

“…Alternatively, long diary completion periods (greater than 6 months) may lower participation and completion rates (Gold, Weiss, Tager, Segal, & Speizer, 1989). For menstrual cycle research, a diary needs to be kept for at least two cycles because of the usual lack of symptom concordance between cycles (Shaver & Woods, 1985). Another alternative is the random selection of diary days within data collection periods.…”

Premenstrual symptoms and ovarian hormones: A review

“…Variability may also Premenstrual symptoms and ovarian hormones 69 occur within individuals from one cycle to the next (e.g. Schnurr, 1989;Green, 1982;Hart et al, 1987;Shaver and Woods, 1985;Walker, 1991). As Gise et al (1990) point out, events in people's lives (crises, holidays, physical illness etc.)…”

Evaluating Therapeutic Change in Symptom Severity at the Level of the Individual Woman Experiencing Severe PMS

“…Asking women to retrospectively rate symptom severity for the postmenstrual and premenstrual phases of the past three menstrual cycles does not accurately reflect the symptom severity found on a day to day basis. Other investigators have found this same effect where individuals will magnify their retrospective symptom severity response or minimize their prospective ratings of symptom severity (Abplanalp, 1988;Shaver & Woods, 1986;Woods et al, 1987).…”