The association between age at menarche and depression: a cross-sectional analysis of the TABARI cohort at enrollment phase.

Background: Puberty, particularly menarche, involves hormonal changes that may influence depressive symptoms. However, research on the association between age at menarche (AAM) and depression yields contradictory results, possibly due to sample differences and differences in socioeconomic status, parenting style, and cultural factors within each studied population. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the association between AAM and depression in a large cohort of the Northern Iranian population.

Methods: This cross-sectional study comprised 6103 female adults aged between 35 and 70 years from the Tabari cohort study. The association between depression and three different AAM subgroups (≤ 11 as early menarche, 12-13 as normal menarche, and ≥ 14 as late menarche) was compared using logestic regression models after adjusted sociodemographic factors.

Results: The crude model showed that females with early AAM and normal AAM had higher odds of depression (OR: 1.27, 95% CI: 0.96-1.69, P = 0.09, and OR: 1.21, 95% CI: 1.03-1.43, P = 0.024, respectively) compared to the late AAM group (P for trend = 0.042). However, in the fully adjusted model, there were no significant associations (OR: 0.97, 95% CI: 0.73-1.29, P = 0.827 for early versus late AAM, and OR: 0.98, 95% CI: 0.82-1.17, P = 0.830 for normative versus late AAM).

Conclusion: Our results indicated that, while no significant relationship was observed between different AAM subgroups and depression in the multivariable model, there was a notable trend suggesting an improvement in depression with later AAM.