A survey of paramenstrual complaints by covert and by overt methods.

A covert method of assessing perception of health in relation to menstruation was applied prospectively to a group of women aged 20 to 40 years. Of the 1386 randomly selected women contacted, 838 (60%) provided information for the full study period of six weeks and 608 of these respondents menstruated during that time. A clear excess of women demonstrated premenstrual deterioration in perceived health. This rose to a peak at the onset of menstruation and subsided rapidly during menstruation, thus reflecting the conventionally defined pattern of the premenstrual syndrome.When, on completion of prospective recording, the same women were asked to return an overt and retrospective assessment of paramenstrual symptoms, the overall pattern of results was similar but, for individual women, there was little correspondence between similar data obtained by the two different methods.