Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Psychiatry. Apr 19, 2022; 12(4): 603-614
Published online Apr 19, 2022. doi: 10.5498/wjp.v12.i4.603
Dimensional (premenstrual symptoms screening tool) vs categorical (mini diagnostic interview, module U) for assessment of premenstrual disorders
Rifka Chamali, Rana Emam, Ziyad R Mahfoud, Hassen Al-Amin
Rifka Chamali, Department of Research, Weill Cornell Medicine - Qatar, Doha 00974, Qatar
Rana Emam, Department of Psychiatry, Hamad Medical Corporation, Doha 00974, Qatar
Ziyad R Mahfoud, Department of Medical Education, Weill Cornell Medicine - Qatar, Doha 00974, Qatar
Ziyad R Mahfoud, Division of Epidemiology, Department of Population of Health Sciences, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York 10065, NY, United States
Hassen Al-Amin, Department of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medicine - Qatar, Doha 00974, Qatar
Author contributions: Hassen A and Rana E designed the research; Rifka C performed the research; Ziyad M and Rifka C analyzed the data; all authors wrote the paper.
Supported by the Qatar National Research Fund, No. UREP 10-022-3-005.
Institutional review board statement: The study protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Boards of Hamad Medical Corporation and Weill Cornell Medicine in Doha, Qatar. Written signed informed consent was waived because the research presented no more than minimal risk or harm to the participants.
Informed consent statement: All study participants, or their legal guardian, provided informed written consent prior to study enrollment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no competing interests.
Data sharing statement: Technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset available from the corresponding author at haa2019@qatar-med.cornell.edu. The data available include no identifiers.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement—checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement—checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Hassen Al-Amin, MD, Professor, Department of Psychiatry, Weill Cornell Medicine - Qatar, Education City, AlRayyan Street, Doha 00974, Qatar. haa2019@qatar-med.cornell.edu
Received: March 28, 2021
Peer-review started: March 28, 2021
First decision: October 4, 2021
Revised: October 23, 2021
Accepted: April 1, 2022
Article in press: April 1, 2022
Published online: April 19, 2022
Abstract
BACKGROUND

Premenstrual syndrome (PMS) is the constellation of physical and psychological symptoms before menstruation. Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) is a severe form of PMS with more depressive and anxiety symptoms. The Mini international neuropsychiatric interview, module U (MINI-U), assesses the diagnostic criteria for probable PMDD. The Premenstrual Symptoms screening tool (PSST) measures the severity of these symptoms.

AIM

To compare the PSST ordinal scores with the corresponding dichotomous MINI-U answers.

METHODS

Arab women (n = 194) residing in Doha, Qatar, received the MINI-U and PSST. Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) analyses provided the cut-off scores on the PSST using MINI-U as a gold standard.

RESULTS

All PSST ratings were higher in participants with positive responses on MINI-U. In addition, ROC analyses showed that all areas under the curves were significant with the cutoff scores on PSST.

CONCLUSION

This study confirms that the severity measures from PSST can recognize patients with moderate/ severe PMS and PMDD who would benefit from immediate treatment.

Keywords: Premenstrual symptoms screening tool, Premenstrual dysphoric disorder, Arabs, Categorical vs dimensional classification

Core Tip: This manuscript assesses the relationship between responses on the dichotomous the Mini international neuropsychiatric interview, module U (MINI-U) answers and the scores on the Premenstrual Symptoms screening tool (PSST). Our findings give reassurance that the MINI-U provides an adequate assessment for the probable diagnosis of Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) and that the severity measures of the PSST can recognize patients with moderate/severe premenstrual syndrome and PMDD who would benefit from immediate treatment.