Brief reportThe association between menstrual cycle and traumatic memories
Section snippets
Participants
Randomized admissions to Westmead Hospital, Australia, were recruited into the study between April 2004 and February 2006. The study was approved by the hospital Research and Ethics Committee. Individuals who met entry criteria were randomly selected using an automated, random assignment procedure, stratified by length of stay. This approach was adopted to ensure that we did not differentially recruit patients who had longer hospital stays because they may be more accessible. Inclusion criteria
Patient characteristics
There were 293 female trauma patients following motor vehicle accidents (n = 214), falls (n = 29), nonsexual assaults (n = 21), and other traumatic events (n = 29) who met inclusion criteria, 217 agreed to participate (74%), and 147 (50%) were asked how many days since their last period. Women who were asked about menstrual period did not differ from women who were not asked in terms of trauma type [χ2 = .13, df = 1, p = .12], mild traumatic brain injury [χ2 = 2.84, df = 1, p = .09], length of hospital admission
Discussion
Women who experienced their trauma during the luteal phase were 3.64 times, and women in the luteal phase at assessment were 4.89 times, more likely to have flashbacks in the acute period after trauma than other women (after controlling for injury severity, age, trauma type, and mild traumatic brain injury). This finding accords with evidence that women who encode an emotional film during the luteal have more subsequent intrusive memories of the film (Ferree and Cahill, 2009), and that cortisol
Role of funding source
Neither the National Health and Medical Research Council nor the Australian Research Council had a role in the study design, in the collection, analysis and interpretation of data, in the writing of the report, and in the decision to submit the paper for publication.
Conflict of interest
No authors are declaring a conflict of interest.
Acknowledgements
This research was supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council Program Grant and an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant.
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