Prevalence and Factor Analysis of Symptoms Associated with Premenstrual Syndrome among University Students in Nigeria - Abstract
The purpose of the present study was to assess the prevalence of premenstrual syndrome (PMS) using daily recording of widely reported symptoms, identify components of PMS factors, assess their interrelationships and to evaluate the effects of drug use, menarcheal and chronological age using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) procedures. Data was collected using a self-administered structured questionnaire from 235 undergraduate students of Bingham University. Responses to all the 25 symptoms of PMS were done on a Likert-type scale from 1 (no symptom) to 4 (severe). Effects due to drug use, chronological and menarcheal age were tested using MANOVA procedures. The prevalence of PMS was 59.4% whereas, 14.1%, 15.1% and 30.2% of the participants reported having mild, moderate and severe symptoms respectively. Results of MANOVA revealed significant decline in symptom severity with age (F = 1.57, P <0.01) and drug use (F = 2.22, P = 0.006) while menarcheal age has no significant influence on symptom severity. Overall, the exploratory factor analysis (EFA) revealed four uncorrelated factors that cumulatively explained 50.1% of the observed variance of PMS. The four factors identified were somatic distress (40.7%), dysphoria (44.5%), cognitive disorder (86.6%) and arousal (74%). Additionally, cognitive disorder and arousal explained more than 80% of the observed variation of PMS. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to verify the construct validity of the four latent factors, therefore warranting intervention to curb the impact of PMS on emotional wellbeing, lifestyle, academic performance, social interactions and interpersonal relations. In conclusion, our findings indicate high prevalence of PMS with peak symptom severity. Having eliminated some symptoms initially included in the questionnaire, preliminary evidence from EFA, reliability, CFA and construct validity revealed 16 most commonly experienced symptoms consisting four-factors (somatic distress, dysphoria, cognitive disorder and arousal). Symptoms of cognitive disorder are the most severe.