The Premenstrual Assessment Form: Short Form (PAF-SF): Additional Psychometric Analyses of a Brief Measure of Premenstrual Symptoms

The Premenstrual Assessment Form–Short Form (PAF-SF) is a 10-item measure that assesses premenstrual symptom severity. There is little research assessing the PAF-SF’s psychometrics and proposed subscales (affect/water retention/pain). This chapter aims to assess the 10-item PAF-SF’s psychometric properties (i.e., internal consistency, and structural/criterion-related/known groups validity). Eighty-seven naturally cycling females (Mage = 28.86 years, SD = 6.11) participated. Participants completed the 10-item PAF-SF; the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory–Trait subscale (STAI-T); and the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-5 (SCID-5) premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD) module. With principal components analysis, we extracted and compared three-factor (affect/water retention/pain) and two-factor (psychological/physiological) solutions for the PAF-SF. The two-factor solution was selected for its greater interpretability, simple structure, internal consistencies, and parsimony. Participants with versus without a provisional PMDD diagnosis had higher psychological subscale scores; unexpectedly, PMDD group differences were not observed on the physiological subscale. Psychological, but not physiological, subscale scores were positively correlated with trait anxiety and PMDD affective symptom count. Scores on the physiological subscale were positively correlated with the PMDD somatic symptom count. Psychological subscale scores were also positively correlated with the PMDD somatic symptom count. The 10-item PAF-SF appears to be a reliable and valid measure of premenstrual symptom severity and comprises psychological and physiological symptom domains.