Teens' PMS Mirrors Adult Women's
Premenstrual syndrome is common in adolescents, and symptoms are similar to those reported by women, a study suggests.
The findings debunk the “commonly accepted belief that adolescents suffer mostly from dysmenorrhea, and older women suffer mostly from PMS,” Michelle D. Vichnin, M.D., said.
A total of 94 girls aged 13–18 years took part in the 6-month study during which they completed the Daily Symptom Report (DSR), a validated tool for measuring 17 PMS symptoms in women.
A total of 31% had self-reported and confirmed PMS; 54% had self-reported PMS but did not meet the criteria for confirmed PMS; and 15% had no PMS, Dr. Vichnin reported at the annual meeting of the North American Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Gynecology.
Confirmed PMS was defined as a self-report of PMS along with a 50% increase in premenstrual vs. postmenstrual DSR scores, said Dr. Vichnin of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
The worst symptoms among teens with PMS were mood swings, anxiety, irritability, food cravings, increased appetite, swelling and/or bloating, and cramps. These symptoms are identical to those reported in studies of women with PMS, she noted. As is also true in women, the greatest impact of these symptoms was on the home/family scale, she said.
In this study, older age and family history of PMS were significantly associated with PMS. Oral contraceptive use and dysmenorrhea were not associated with PMS.
Gender and Criminality
Women who have a dual diagnosis of rapid-cycling bipolar disorder and substance abuse/dependence are more at risk for engaging in criminal activity than are women in the general population, though their risk is lower than that of men with a dual diagnosis, reported Susan Hatters Friedman, M.D., of the University Hospitals of Cleveland, and her associates.
In a study of 55 women and 77 men with a dual diagnosis and a comparison group of 18 female and 13 male bipolar patients with no history of substance abuse, 53% of female and 79% of male dual-diagnosis patients reported ever being charged with a crime, while only 17% of women and 8% of men in the comparison group reported a history of criminal charges.
Nearly half of men and women in the dual-diagnosis group reported being incarcerated, with only one woman (6%) from the comparison female group reporting prior incarceration (J. Am. Acad. Psychiatry Law 2005;33:188–95).
Teen Girls React to Parental Rejection
Aggressive behavior in adolescents may be fueled in part by the depression associated with perceived parental rejection, said William W. Hale III, Ph.D., of Utrecht (the Netherlands) University and his colleagues.
In a study of 1,329 students aged 10–19 years, the investigators assessed aggressive and withdrawn behaviors with a 23-item questionnaire (J. Adolesc. Health 2005; 36:466–74).
Overall, significant associations appeared between perceived parental rejection and both aggression and depression.
When the population was divided into subgroups, the association between perceived parental rejection and depression was statistically significant for younger girls (aged 10–14 years) and older girls (aged 15–19 years) but not for boys, and the association was statistically significant for the older girls, compared with all other subgroups.
Rejection did not appear to have a significant impact on depression or aggression in the subgroups of older or younger boys.
The differences might reflect girls' stronger orientation toward interpersonal relationships, the investigators noted.
Paps Infrequent Among Immigrants
Foreign-born women living in the United States were significantly less likely to have had a Pap test within the past 3 years, compared with American-born women, Xu Wang, M.D., and colleagues reported in a poster presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Preventive Medicine.
Immigration status was associated with lower Pap test use independently of poverty, lack of insurance, and lack of a regular source of medical care, noted Dr. Wang and associates of Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee.
The logistic regression analysis included data on 16,505 women taken from the 2000 National Health Interview Survey. The age-adjusted percentage of women who had Pap tests within the past 3 years increased the longer they lived in the United States. Only 47% of women who immigrated less than 5 years ago had undergone Pap tests, compared with 58% of women who immigrated 5–9 years ago, and 78% of American-born women.