Survey study, 2014
What makes PMS worse in college women, stress or how they feel about periods?
Both matter. Women with higher stress and a more negative attitude toward menstruation tended to have worse PMS, along with smoking and painful periods, but together these only explained about a quarter of the difference between women.
What they did
Researchers surveyed 330 female college students in one Korean city over a few days in April 2012, asking about stress, attitudes to menstruation, and PMS symptoms, then used statistics to see which factors were linked to PMS.
What they found
Stress was linked to worse PMS (r=.36), and so was a negative attitude to menstruation (r=.34). Attitude to menstruation, stress, smoking, and painful periods together predicted PMS severity, explaining 27% of the variation. Attitude to menstruation was the strongest single factor.
What it means for you
Psychological factors like stress and how a woman views her period seem tied to PMS severity, but this study only shows a link, not that changing these would cure PMS. It was a one-time survey of young women in one city, so it can't prove cause and effect and may not apply to other groups.
330
Participants
27%
Variation in PMS explained
r=.36
Link between stress and PMS
About the study
- Original title
- The Influential Factors on Premenstrual Syndrome College Female Students
- Authors
- Geum-Sook Jung, Hyun-Mi Oh, In-Ryoung Choi
- Journal
- Journal of the Korea Academia-Industrial cooperation Society
- Year
- 2014
- Study design
- Survey study
- Participants
- 330
- What was tested
- None (observational survey, no treatment tested)
- Open access
- Yes
- Read the paper
- doi.org/10.5762/kais.2014.15.5.3025
Topics
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