This dissertation explored factors related to heterosexual women's use of
the label "PMS" and the question of why so many women who say that they have
PMS do not meet prospectively-based researcher criteria. Participants were
recruited through Vancouver city newspapers and posters for a study of
emotional, behavioural, and health patterns. They were screened for
hysterectomies, ovariectomies, pregnancy, and chronic illnesses. The 58
women in this study (mean age=34.5) provided daily prospective data over a
mean of 15 weeks for 15 variables representing 4 different types of symptoms:
mood, relationship, concentration and work performance, and physical and
activity symptom types. At the beginning of the study, they completed the Beck
Depression Inventory. During a final interview they completed various
questionnaires regarding romantic relationships, stress, history of abuse, and
attitudes toward menstruation. During her final interview, each woman was
asked whether she had ever had PMS and, if so, what she believed caused it.
Only 16% of the women met researcher-designated criteria for PMS and
9% met researcher-criteria for PDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder, APA,
1994), but 60% believed that they currently had PMS. There was very little
match between researcher-designations and self-designations for any of the 15
prospective variables. Instead, consistent with schematic theories of PMS, it
was women's attitudes toward menstruation that were most strongly related to
self-designation. Women who said that they currently had PMS were more likely
to view menstruation as debilitating, natural, and predictable. They had higher
depression scores and reported more frequent and enduring experiences of
anger. More of these women reported having been emotionally abused as an
adult, emotionally abused as a child, and physically abused by a past or current
romantic partner. Although women who said that they had never had PMS perceived menstruation as more bothersome, they believed that women should
be able to ignore it. Current-Say and Never-Say women did not significantly
differ for other forms of abuse, partner satisfaction, or daily uplifts. Daily hassles
did not reach statistical significance at the multivariate level, but univariate
significance indicated that Never-Say women might experience fewer daily
hassles than Current-Say women. The prospective data were analyzed
idiographically using prediction analyses. Current-Say women demonstrated
more uncharacteristic cyclicity during the midcycle phase across the 15 variables
and 4 symptom types. Never-Say women showed more uncharacteristic
cyclicity during the postmenstrual phase. No differences were found for other
phases. These findings, and other results, argue against the use of simple
premenstrual-postmenstrual and premenstrual-intermenstrual difference
measures in diagnosing PMS or PDD.
It was concluded that, although the women's self-designations did not
match their prospective data, they could not be explained simply as a
mislabelling of negative cyclicity in other phases. There was also mixed
evidence for the hypothesis that women's reports of having "PMS" were part of a
generalized over-reporting of symptomatology or dissatisfaction. Possible
explanations for women's self-designations are discussed, including schematic
representations of both menstruation and general illness and a "contrast
hypothesis" modified from the version proposed by McFarlane and Williams
(1994). This contrast hypothesis suggests that cyclical changes occurring during
a particular non-premenstrual phase are related to women's self-designations
according to (a) the timing of these changes relative to the visible and salient
menses, in conjunction with (b) their attitudes toward menstruation. Close to half
(45%) the women who said that they had experienced PMS attributed their
perceived PMS to a bidirectional model of physiology and environment, and 58% of the women saying that they had PMS believed that it happened occasionally
rather than inevitably. Overall, the women's representations of menstrual
cyclicity were neither simple reflections of cultural stereotypes nor pervasively
negative, but rather diverse and complex. The results that link depression,
anger, and specific forms of abuse to self-designations suggest that women
saying that they have PMS are indicating difficulties that may or may not be
menstrually-related. Researchers and other professionals need to assess the
nature of those difficulties in women presenting with "PMS". / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/8650 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Moore, Shelley |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Format | 18630937 bytes, application/pdf |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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