Associations Between Psychiatric Disorders and Menstrual Cycle Characteristics

An understanding of the relationship between psychiatric disorders and menstrual characteristics is important to the assessment and care of women. Menstrual cycle regularity and length have significant associations with specific current and lifetime psychiatric disorders. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether psychiatric disorders are associated with menstrual cycle length or regularity. The sample included 628 pregnant Medicaid-eligible women from Women, Infants, and Children's Supplemental Nutrition Program sites in five counties in rural Missouri and the city of St. Louis. Women were assessed for current (12-month) and lifetime psychiatric disorders with the Diagnostic Interview Schedule IV. Menstrual length and regularity were assessed by self-report. Analyses consisted of logistic regression while controlling for race. Independent of the effects of race, (a) women who reported irregular cycles were less than half as likely to have a current anxiety disorder as those that reported regular cycles, and (b) women with shorter cycles (≤28 days) have one and a half times to two times greater risk of current affective disorder, lifetime affective disorder, lifetime anxiety disorder, lifetime substance use or dependence disorder, and lifetime drug abuse or dependence. A significant interaction effect for race and cycle length indicated that cycle length predicted likelihood of having any lifetime psychiatric disorder for Caucasians only and there was no association between cycle length and lifetime psychiatric diagnosis for African American women.