Premenstrual symptoms and depression in a university population.

The correlation between a premenstrual syndrome based on emotional symptoms and primary affective disorder was prospectively studied in 105 college freshmen. Students with premenstrual symptoms were twice as likely as controls to have a history of a serious depressive episodes and twice as likely to have a close family member with depression. Seven percent of women with premenstrual emotional symptoms and none of the controls had an affective episode during the ensuing year. The premenstrual syndrome did not interfere with academic performance and was not associated with any lowering of professional aspirations. The inconsistent results of past research on the relationship between depressive disorder and premenstrual symptoms may have been the consequence of differing definitions in different studies. The final answer on this possible association may result from using a clear definition of premenstrual symptoms based on emotional difficulties and a well defined research oriented criteria for the diagnoses of affective disorder.