Amenorrhea in Psychiatric Inpatients

To the Editor.— Women with chronic psychiatric disorders appear to have a high incidence of menstrual dysfunction, and phenothiazines and tricyclic antidepressants can also lead to such dysfunction.1,2Approximately 5% of all women capable of having menses experience amenorrhea for a period of time.3We recently conducted a prospective and retrospective study of the prevalence of that disorder in relation to concurrent disease states, psychiatric diagnoses, and use of psychotropic drugs. Report of a Case.— From June 1, 1980, through June 30, 1981, medical records of all female patients admitted to the inpatient psychiatric unit of Shands Teaching Hospital (Gainesville, Fla) were reviewed. Patients under 18 and over 45 years of age were excluded. Amenorrhea was defined as the absence of two or more menstrual periods. Information collected on each patient included the discharge diagnosis (admission diagnosis for patients studied prospectively), previous drug therapy, severity of amenorrhea (number of