Survey study, 2023
Do marriage happiness and personality affect how bad PMS is?
This study found that women who were happier in their marriage and had certain personality traits tended to have less severe PMS, partly linked to fewer unhelpful thinking patterns, but it only shows a pattern, not proof of cause.
What they did
Researchers surveyed 400 married students at Tehran Azad University during 1399-1400 (the Iranian calendar years), selected through stepwise cluster sampling. The women completed questionnaires on PMS, marital satisfaction, personality traits, and early maladaptive schemas (unhelpful thought patterns formed early in life), and the data were analysed using structural equation modelling.
What they found
The overall model fit the data well. Marital satisfaction had a significant direct negative effect on PMS, meaning more satisfaction was linked to less PMS. Personality traits such as openness to new experiences, agreeableness and conscientiousness also had a significant direct negative effect on PMS, as did neuroticism. Marital satisfaction and these personality traits also had a direct negative effect on early maladaptive schemas, and these schemas in turn had a direct effect on PMS, with PMS levels rising as maladaptive schemas increased.
What it means for you
Relationship happiness, personality, and early unhelpful thought patterns all seem connected to PMS severity, and addressing these in therapy might help. But this was a cross-sectional survey of married students in one city, so it cannot prove changing these factors would reduce PMS, and results may not apply elsewhere.
400
Women surveyed
About the study
- Original title
- Structural model of premenstrual syndrome based on marital satisfaction and personality traits with the mediating role of early maladaptive schemas
- Authors
- Maryam Alijani, Rasol Roshan Chesli, Abolghasem Isamorad roodboneh et al.
- Journal
- Journal of Research in Behavioural Sciences
- Year
- 2023
- Study design
- Survey study
- Participants
- 400
- What was tested
- None tested; survey of links between marital satisfaction, personality traits, maladaptive schemas, and PMS
- Open access
- Yes
- Read the paper
- doi.org/10.52547/rbs.20.4.10
Topics
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