Premenstrual symptoms and luteal suicide attempts

Objective If premenstrual symptoms (PMS) are temporally and specifically associated with suicidal attempts, suicide attempts in women with PMS should occur more frequently in the luteal phase. Method In a general hospital, 125 fertile female suicide attempters (and 83 blood donors as controls) with regular menstrual cycles were prospectively studied. A retrospective DSM-IV diagnosis of Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) was made. Results Attempts during the luteal phase were not more frequent in females with PMDD (34%,23/68) than in those without PMDD (35%, 20/57). The sample had enough power to detect medium and large effect sizes. As expected, there was a significantly higher frequency of PMDD in suicide attempters than in the controls (54% vs 6%; Fisher's exact test, pless than or equal to 0.001). Conclusion This study was limited by the use of retrospective PMDD diagnosis but suggests that PMDD may not be associated with suicidal acts during the luteal phase, when PMS are present.