ABSTRACT
Objective This preliminary study aimed to investigate relevant factors of the metacognition of peri?menopausal women. Methods Total 66 perimenopausal women voluntarily participated in this study from October 2012 to July 2013. The Metacognitions Questionnaire 30-item version (MCQ-30) was used to assess metacognition from 5 di?mensions including cognitive confidence (F1), positive beliefs (F2), cognitive self-consciousness (F3), uncontrollability and danger (F4), and need to control thoughts (F5). Eysenck Personality Questionnaire was utilized to measure the person?ality characteristics such as the extraversion/introversion (E), neuroticism/stability (N), psychoticism/socialization (P), and lie (L). Depression and its 4 symptom components including core, cognitive, anxiety, and somatic symptoms were deter?mined by Zung Self-rating Depression Scale (SDS). The linear multiple stepwise regression were performed to analyze the relevant factors of each MCQ dimension. Results The education level (β’=-0.229, P=0.035), N score (β’=0.255, P=0.042), and L score (β’=-0.292, P=0.021) were related to F1. The education level (β’=-0.260, P=0.031) and N score (β’=0.248, P=0.039) were predictors of the dependent variable F2. The core depression symptom (β’=-0.251, P=0.037) and anxiety symptom (β’=-0.248, P=0.039) of SDS were negatively related to F3. Predictors of F4 were the body mass in?dex (β’=0.211, P=0.048) and L score (β’=0.511, P<0.0001). Only P score (β’=0.299, P=0.015) was related to F5. Con?clusion The metacognition level of perimenopausal women is affected by a variety of factors such as personality character?istics and education level, and low self-consciousness and lack of confidence to the cognitive process may be involved in the increased susceptibility to depression.