Can premenstrual symptoms help improve women’s healthcare?

Can premenstrual symptoms help improve women’s healthcare? Professor Belinda Pletzer from Paris Lodron University of Salzburg explores if the assessment of premenstrual symptoms can help improve women’s healthcare. Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) is not uncontroversial as a diagnosis. (1) It was added to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5 (DSM-5) in 2013, but only made it into the 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) – valid since 2022. It is characterised by the cyclical recurrence of a total of five psychological symptoms, including at least one out of four key psychiatric symptoms (mood lability, depression, anxiety, irritability) in the premenstrual phase. Symptoms have to subside a few days after the onset of menses and severely impact women’s everyday functioning and quality of life.