This study was designed to investigate the relationship between sexual abuse and perimenstrual symptoms in adolescent girls. Perimenstrual symptoms include somatic and affective complaints that occur immediately prior to and during menstruation. Patients from an outpatient adolescent health service completed questionnaires and structured interviews that elicited sexual abuse histories and perimenstrual symptomatology. Of the 68 girls enrolled in the study, 22 had a history of a forced sexual experience. No significant differences in retrospective or prospective reports of perimenstrual symptoms were found between the adolescent girls with and without a history of sexual abuse. Girls with a history of abuse had significantly more premenstrual symptoms than a control group of women reported in a normative study. They also had significantly more menstrual physical complaints than women with premenstrual syndrome or control group women.
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