The Worldwide Prevalence of Premenstrual Syndrome: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Study

Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) is one of the most common disorders among women of reproductive age that has negative effects on women performance and emotion. As there are several factors that influence the prevalence of PMS, the present study was done to investigate the worldwide prevalence of PMS using meta-analysis method. In a meta-analysis with random-effects model, the ISI, Pubmed and Scopus databases were searched and 53 articles from 1996-2011were extracted. After reviewing the articles based on inclusion criteria, 17 studies were selected. Results of these studies were evaluated with a random-effects model meta-analysis. Variance of each study was obtained using binomial distribution. Heterogeneity of study was checked using I2 index. In total of 17 papers, 18803 people entered into the meta analysis and the pooled prevalence of PMS was obtained 48%. Pooled prevalence of PMS was reported 40% in Europe, 85% in Africa, 46% in Asia and 60% in South America. Meta-regression scatter plot revealed that with increasing the sample size, the prevalence of PMS decreased. The difference was statistically significant (p=0.013). However, the correlation between prevalence of PMS and year of study was not significant (p=0.797). Studies carried out in different parts of the world have examined the prevalence of PMS using different tools. Considering that the highest prevalence of premenstrual syndrome has been reported in Iran, measure of the disorder in different age, social and cultural groups using appropriate assessment tools is recommended.