Allen Alicia M, McRae-Clark Aimee L, Carlson Samantha, Saladin Michael E, Gray Kevin M, Wetherington Cora Lee, McKee Sherry A, Allen Sharon S
Department of Family Medicine & Community Health.
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.
Exp Clin Psychopharmacol. 2016 Feb;24(1):1-11. doi: 10.1037/pha0000057.
Given the volume and importance of research focusing on menstrual phase, a review of the strategies being used to identify menstrual phase and recommendations that will promote methodological uniformity in the field is needed. We conducted a literature review via Ovid Medline and PsycINFO. Our goal was to review methods used to identify menstrual phase and subphases in biobehavioral research studies with women who had physiologically natural menstrual cycles. Therefore, we excluded articles that focused on any of the following: use of exogenous hormones, the postpartum period, menstrual-related problems (e.g., polycystic ovarian syndrome, endometriosis), and infertility/anovulation. We also excluded articles on either younger (<18 years old) or older (>45 years old) study samples. We initially identified a total of 1,809 articles. After our exclusionary criteria were applied, 146 articles remained, within which our review identified 6 different methods used to identify menstrual phase and subphases. The most common method used was self-report of onset of menses (145/146 articles) followed by urine luteinizing hormone testing (50/146 articles) and measurement of hormones (estradiol and/or progesterone) in blood samples (49/146 articles). Overall, we found a lack of consistency in the methodology used to determine menstrual phase and subphases. We provide several options to improve accuracy of phase identification, as well as to minimize costs and burden. Adoption of these recommendations will decrease misclassification within individual studies, facilitate cross-study comparisons, and enhance the reproducibility of results.
鉴于聚焦月经周期阶段的研究数量众多且意义重大，有必要对用于识别月经周期阶段的策略以及能够促进该领域方法一致性的建议进行综述。我们通过Ovid Medline和PsycINFO进行了文献综述。我们的目标是回顾在针对具有生理自然月经周期的女性进行的生物行为研究中用于识别月经周期阶段和子阶段的方法。因此，我们排除了聚焦于以下任何方面的文章：外源激素的使用、产后时期、与月经相关的问题（如多囊卵巢综合征、子宫内膜异位症）以及不孕/无排卵。我们还排除了关于年龄较小（<18岁）或较大（>45岁）研究样本的文章。我们最初共识别出1809篇文章。在应用我们的排除标准后，剩下146篇文章，在这些文章中我们的综述确定了6种用于识别月经周期阶段和子阶段的不同方法。最常用的方法是月经开始的自我报告（145/146篇文章），其次是尿促黄体生成素检测（50/146篇文章）以及血液样本中激素（雌二醇和/或孕酮）的测量（49/146篇文章）。总体而言，我们发现用于确定月经周期阶段和子阶段的方法缺乏一致性。我们提供了几种提高阶段识别准确性的选项，同时尽量减少成本和负担。采纳这些建议将减少个体研究中的错误分类，促进跨研究比较，并提高结果的可重复性。
