Particularities of Depressive Disorders Installed in Perimenopause

Background: The risk of woman to present a depressive clinical picture increases in parallel with the approaching age of perimenopause.
Aim: The main purpose of the paper is to study correlations between symptoms of perimenoapuse and depressive episode occurance, taking into consideration the severity and the frequency of symptoms of perimenopause.
Material and methods: We have selected the cases by performing a screening to pacients with major depressive disorder, hospitalized in No. 1 Psychiatric Clinic, between 01.01.2007–31.12.2009.
Results: From the total patients admitted (1342) only 160 patients aged 34–55 years, voluntarily wanted to participate, representing 11.92% of all patients. Analyzing the severity of psychological symptoms we have obtained statistical significance in the age group 46–50 years: p = 0.0303. Analyzing the frequency of vasomotor symptoms by age group, we have obtained statistical significance in the age group 34–40 years: p = 0.006. Analyzing the frequency and severity of somatic symptoms by age groups, we have obtained statistical significance in the age group 34–40 years.
Conclusions: The rural environment proved to be a protective factor in the emergence of depressive disorders (P = 0.0189). Estimating the role of hormonal decline at patients aged over 40 years, helped us to understand that the emergence and evolution of clinical manifestations during perimenopause and menopause may be caused by fluctuations of central secretion of pituitary hormones and sex steroids.