Date of Award
1988
Publication Type
Doctoral Thesis
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Department
Psychology
Keywords
Psychology, Clinical.
Rights
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Abstract
Arguing that two related assumptions frequently made in studies of premenstrual changes--the assumption that premenstrual changes are related to neurotic personality traits and the assumption that premenstrual changes are related to affective disorders--are mistaken, the author attempted to test these assumptions. The author believes that previous research on this topic has been, for the most part, methodologically unsound. The present study was designed, not only to test these assumptions using a more suitable method, but also to demonstrate the effect of the errors in method. Participants were 189 women volunteers with a mean age of 25. Premenstrual changes were assessed both retrospectively (by the Premenstrual Assessment Form (PAF) of Halbreich, Endicott, & Schacht, 1982) and also concurrently (by the Menstrual Distress Questionnaire--Today (MDQ-T) of Moos, 1985). Psychiatric status (DSM-III diagnosis) was assessed by the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (DIS) of Robins, Helzer, Croughan, & Ratcliff, 1981. Neuroticism, considered to be a personality trait, was assessed using the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire--Neuroticism Scale (EPQ-N) of Eysenck & Eysenck (1975). When premenstrual change was defined as the difference between the premenstrual symptom score and the intermenstrual symptom score on the MDQ-T, magnitude of premenstrual change did not differ substantially according to psychiatric status. Likewise, there was no substantial correlation between magnitude of premenstrual change and neuroticism score. The finding that the women with a psychiatric disorder reported more symptoms of all kinds (i.e., more endorsement of control items and more of intermenstrual symptoms as well as more of premenstrual symptoms) suggests that the association previously reported between psychological maladjustment and premenstrual change may be an artifact of this kind of response bias.Dept. of Psychology. Paper copy at Leddy Library: Theses & Major Papers - Basement, West Bldg. / Call Number: Thesis1988 .L486. Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 50-03, Section: B, page: 1113. Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Windsor (Canada), 1988.
Recommended Citation
Lesonsky, Elaine Marie., "The association between premenstrual changes and neurotic personality traits and neurotic disorders: Fact or artifact of inadequate method?" (1988). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 3767.
https://scholar.uwindsor.ca/etd/3767