Abstract
Recently a lot of attention has been paid to premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) by both psychiatrists and gynecologists. PMDD is characterized as a kind of severe premenstrual syndrome (PMS). The symptoms are similar to ones of depression. We produced the PMDD scale based on DSM-IV criteria which was modified from the scale developed by Steiner et al. (2003), and investigated its reliability and validity. Three hundred and twenty seven women who were aged from 20 to 45 years old completed the scale. A factor analysis indicated three factors that were labeled "fatigue and/or physical symptoms", "depressive moods" and "dysfunctional relationships and/or anger". The Cronbach's α coefficient of each factor of the PMDD scale had a high internal consistency. The PMDD scale was significantly correlated with the self-rating depression scale (SDS) among women who were in the late luteal phase; i.e. the premenstrual phase. The scale was found to have high proof of the reliability and validity. Prevalence of PMDD among the subjects was 5.9%. These results suggested that the scale is effective for screening PMDD.
