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Emotional regulation difficulties and premenstrual symptoms among Israeli students

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An Erratum to this article was published on 02 September 2016

Abstract

Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) is a severe form of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) reported to affect 3–8 % of women of reproductive age and resulting in marked emotional and occupational impairment. Despite its prevalence, the etiology of PMDD is largely unknown, and patients remain mostly undiagnosed and poorly treated. It has been suggested that PMDD is a manifestation of underlying depressive disorder which is associated with the inability to regulate emotions in an adaptive manner. Therefore, we hypothesized that women with PMDD would exhibit increased difficulty with emotional regulation. A total of 648 female Israeli college students were assessed by the Premenstrual Symptoms Screening Tool (PSST) and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS). Of these women, 166 (25.6 %) met the criteria for PMS. Sixty-four (9.9 %) suffered from PMDD. More emotion regulation deficits were observed in the PMDD and PMS groups compared to the control group. Furthermore, there were more emotional regulation deficits among the predominantly psychological and mixed symptom subtype compared to the predominantly physical symptom subtype group. This is the first study to report an association between emotional dysregulation and PMDD. These findings may lead to development of more individually tailored treatment protocols focused on improving emotional regulation techniques.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel

    Inbal Reuveni, Ronen Segman, Ron Evron, Sofia Laufer, Omer Bonne & Laura Canetti

  2. MRI/MRS Lab, The Human Biology Research Center, Department of Medical Biophysics, Hadassah Hebrew University Medical Center, Jerusalem, Israel

    Rotem Dan & Gadi Goelman

  3. Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences (ELSC), The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel

    Rotem Dan

  4. Department of Psychology, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel

    Laura Canetti

Authors
  1. Inbal Reuveni
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  2. Rotem Dan
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  3. Ronen Segman
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  4. Ron Evron
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  5. Sofia Laufer
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  6. Gadi Goelman
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  7. Omer Bonne
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  8. Laura Canetti
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Correspondence to Inbal Reuveni.

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The study was approved by the ethics committee of the Hadassah Medical Center, Jerusalem.

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For submission to Archives of Women’s Mental Health

After review for Archives of Women’s Mental Health

An erratum to this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00737-016-0663-z.

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Reuveni, I., Dan, R., Segman, R. et al. Emotional regulation difficulties and premenstrual symptoms among Israeli students. Arch Womens Ment Health 19, 1063–1070 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00737-016-0656-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00737-016-0656-y

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