One woman's low is another woman's high: Paradoxical effects of the menstrual cycle
Section snippets
Participants
Participants were 213 female university students with a mean age of M = 21.29 years (SD = 4.01).
All first-year female psychology students were asked to participate, and efforts were made to include women both with and without menstrual difficulties. Individuals could not participate if they were using hormonal contraceptives or therapy. Individuals who had been diagnosed with a psychological or medical condition for which they had been, or were being treated, were welcomed to participate. However,
Results
The results from the HLM analyses are presented in Table 1. The fixed effects are presented in the top half of this table. These effects are simply the average effects across the entire sample for the linear, quadratic, cubic and quartic effects of time. As expected, all four effects were significant, and showing the pattern of −Time, +Time2, −Time3, +Time4 (i.e., a “W” shaped pattern across two cycles); corresponding to a decrease in symptoms at the onset of menstruation, followed by an
Discussion
The present study demonstrates that there is a great deal of variability across women in the degree to which they experience affective changes across the menstrual cycle, and in the trajectory pattern of these changes. Specific to this heterogeneity is the main discovery of the present study, showing that 13% of the woman in this sample experience a mid-cycle increase in depression/anxiety followed by a premenstrual decrease in these symptoms. That is to say, they experience cyclical changes in
Role of funding source
Funding and support for this study was provided by an Innovative Research Grant from the Università Degli Studi di Padova. The University had no further role in study design; in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication.
Conflict of interest
None declared.
Acknowledgements
The author thanks Stefano Andriolo of the Department of Developmental and Social Psychology, at the Università Degli Studi di Padova, for his valuable assistance in creating and managing the website used for data collection.
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