| Affiliation: | (1) Department of Psychiatry, Fundacion Jimenez Diaz, Madrid, Spain;(2) Department of Psychiatry, Hospital Ramon y Cajal, Madrid, Spain;(3) Conte Center for the Neurobiology of Mental Disorders, Department of Neuroscience, Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, NY, USA;(4) Mental Health Research Center at Eastern State Hospital, 627 West Fourth St., Lexington, KY 40508, USA |
| Abstract: | Abstract. Objective: If premenstrual symptoms (PMS) are temporally and specifically associated with suicidal attempts, suicide attempts in women with PMS should occur more frequently in the luteal phase. Method: In a general hospital, 125 fertile female suicide attempters (and 83 blood donors as controls) with regular menstrual cycles were prospectively studied. A retrospective DSM-IV diagnosis of Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) was made. Results: Attempts during the luteal phase were not more frequent in females with PMDD (34%,23/68) than in those without PMDD (35%, 20/57). The sample had enough power to detect medium and large effect sizes. As expected, there was a significantly higher frequency of PMDD in suicide attempters than in the controls (54% vs 6%; Fisher s exact test, p  0.001). Conclusion: This study was limited by the use of retrospective PMDD diagnosis but suggests that PMDD may not be associated with suicidal acts during the luteal phase,when PMS are present. |
