This chapter is a narrative review that intends to depict the prevalence of premenstrual syndrome, the existing coping styles among different populations studied, and an insight about various classifications of coping strategies for premenstrual distress. The functional impairment due to severity of the syndrome has also been presented. A brief account of some studies has been provided. This article also gives an overview about different coping strategies used by the women for adaptation with premenstrual syndrome for their personal and social well-being.
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Approximately 90-95% of women in their reproductive age experience some kind of symptoms of PMS (Read, Perz, & Ussher, 2014). Majority of them usually have only mild discomfort that do not interfere with their personal, social, or professional activities. However, about 5% to 8% of women suffer from moderate-to-severe symptoms that can lead to significant distress and functional impairment (Mishra, Elliott, & Marwaha, 2022). However, this is mainly a disease seen in the younger girls, about 14 to 88% of teenage girls are affected, with the older teenagers more likely to have symptoms than the younger teenagers (Fiebai, Ukueku, & Ogu, 2018). Female adolescents are at greater risk of anemia due to menstruation and unhealthy eating habits (Cooke, McCavit, Buchanan, & Powers, 2016). The estimated prevalence of PMS in India has been reported to range from 14.3% (Durairaj & Ramamurthi, 2019) to 74.4% (Kavitha & Shanmughavadivu, 2015). Other literature reports the prevalence of PMS that ranges from 14.7% to 91.4% (Raval, Panchal, Tiwari, Vala, & Bhatt, 2016) and that of PMDD ranges from 3.7% to 39% (Raval et al., 2016; Aryal, Thapa, & Pant, 2017). Another study (Bhuvaneswari, Rabindran, & Bharadwaj, 2019) reports the prevalence of PMDD in India as high as 65.7%. In a recent meta-analysis (Dutta & Sharma, 2021) the prevalence of PMS and PMDD across different studies showed a substantial heterogeneity which can be attributed to variation in age group, geographical region, residence (rural or urban), study designs, type of diagnostic tool and the applied cutoff points. In Indian perspective, the prevalence of said entity were found to be the highest in Delhi and the lowest in Kerala (Dutta & Sharma, 2021, p167).
PMS is influenced by psycho-social aspects, cultural factors, education level and family environment (Wong, 2011). PMS was found to be frequently associated with women having higher education, working in nursing profession and residing in nuclear families (Kumari & Sachdeva, 2016). Women who are more ambitious and not satisfied with their role in work place or society suffers a lot from PMS. Tolossa et al. (2014) hypothesized that factors such as socioeconomic status, dietary habit, genetic predisposition, family history and custom, can all influence the PMS. Negative attitudes toward menstruation also influence the PMS (Lete et al., 2011).
It is quite difficult to ascertain the prevalence of PMS due to influence of several factors such as self-treatment, difference in available therapy, hesitancy to access medical care, variable definition and diagnostic criteria, gender bias regarding diagnosis, and cultural practices (Mahesh,Tirmizi & Ali, 2011; Tolossa et al., 2014).