Premenstrual Symptoms: Correlation with Temperament

Background: Premenstrual syndrome is particularly common problem in the young age group and represents significant public health problem (Halbreich et al., 2003). During adolescence, temperament plays a major role to determine how a person will deal with a stressors and different type of physical and psychological changes. Aim: The aim of this study was to assess the correlation between temperament and premenstrual tension symptoms in adolescent girls. Method: In this study 4 girl’s schools were selected in Ranchi, Jharkhand. Participants from the schools were recruited by purposive sampling method as per the inclusion and exclusion criteria. All the participants were given a brief description about the study and ensured about the confidentiality. Subsequent doubts were thoroughly clarified and asked to give an informed consent. All the tools (premenstrual symptoms checklist, TEMPS-A, were administered at the same time. Results: Findings of current study show that there is significant correlation of various type of temperament namely dysthymic, cyclothymic and irritable with premenstrual symptoms. There was significant correlation found between various type of temperament and various sub domains of premenstrual symptoms namely, biological, psychological and somatic. Conclusion: The study found significant correlation between temperament and premenstrual tension symptoms.