Study, 2022
What do women with PMDD say they need?
Women with PMDD on Reddit discuss four main things: their emotional reactions to PMDD, unanswered questions about diagnosis and treatment, how it affects relationships, and advice they give to other women.
What they did
Researchers searched Reddit posts in the PMDD forum from January 2020 to November 2021. They included posts with at least 5 upvotes and at least 3 comments. They reviewed over 800 posts, selected 250 that met their criteria, and analyzed over 875 comments. Two people classified each post, and a third person resolved any disagreements.
What they found
Four main themes emerged. Women discussed emotional responses to PMDD. They shared many unanswered questions about diagnosis and treatment. They described how PMDD affected personal relationships. Women also made recommendations to other women based on their own experience, though some of these recommendations were not medically accurate.
What it means for you
This shows what women with PMDD experience and what questions they have. It does not test whether any treatments work. Some advice women give each other on social media may not be correct, which is an important limit. The abstract notes that PMDD affects 1.8 to 5.8 percent of menstruating women for 1 to 2 weeks each month.
1.8-5.8%
of menstruating women with PMDD
1-2 weeks
affected per month
250
posts analyzed
About the study
- Original title
- Unmet Needs Discussed on Reddit by Women with Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder
- Authors
- Poladian N, Maron A, Ghazarian T et al.
- Journal
- Cyberpsychology, behavior and social networking
- Year
- 2022
- Study design
- Study
- Participants
- 8
- Read the paper
- doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2022.0072
Topics
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