Analysis of the relationship between premenstrual syndrome and mental health variables in adolescents

Objective: While premenstrual syndrome (PMS) is already a debilitating condition for women, its effects become even more pronounced in adolescents when it comes together with the difficulties faced during the transition period from childhood to adolescence. When the findings of the literature are explored, it is seen that the existence of premenstrual syndrome in adolescents is questioned and there are limited studies that examined its relationship with depression, quality of life and anger. Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyze the relationship of premenstrual syndrome with quality of life, level of anger and depression, which is a frequently encountered psychological disorder in adolescents between 15 and 18 years of age. Methods: In current study, which was conducted with 156 participants, Sociodemographic Form, Premenstrual Syndrome Scale, Beck Depression Inventory, Quality of Life Scale for Children (Adolescent Form) and Trait Anger and Anger Expression Scales were used. The scales were assessed with Pearson Correlation Analysis and Linear Hierarchical Regression Analysis. Results: Results indicated that, whilst the severity of premenstrual syndrome increases, depression (p<.01) and level of anger (p<.01) significantly increase, however, quality of life (p<.01) decreases. On the other hand, this study took the fact that previous studies focused only on the direct effect of mental health variables such as depression and anger on PMS into account and examined also the interrelationships among mental health variables and included mediator effect analyses in the research process. According to the findings of the study, the partial mediation effect of depression (p<.01) and anger (p<.01) on the relationship between quality of life and PMS were found to be significant when examined separately. Moreover, it was seen that anger has a significant partial mediation effect on the relationship between depression and PMS (p<.01). Conclusion: In the light of all these data, the most important contribution of this study is its suggestion to control primarily depression, anger and quality of life in the treatment of patients with premenstrual syndrome and not to disregard the interrelationships among these variables.