Free printable chart
A printable DRSP chart for two cycles
A DRSP chart is a daily record of premenstrual symptoms, each rated from 1 to 6 in the evening, and two cycles of it are how PMDD is confirmed. This one prints on US Letter or A4 and comes with eight short weekly emails on reading it.
What is on the chart
Mood
- Mood swings, sudden tears, or feeling hurt by rejection
- Irritable or angry, or more arguments than usual
- Low, hopeless, or very hard on myself
- Anxious, tense, or on edge
Mind and body
- Less interest in work, friends or hobbies
- Hard to concentrate
- Tired or low on energy
- Eating more, or cravings
- Sleeping more, or trouble sleeping
- Overwhelmed or out of control
- Body: sore breasts, bloating, aches or weight gain
Effect on my day
- Got in the way at work, school or home
- Got in the way with people close to me
Plus a period row and a date row. Each row is rated 1 not at all, 2 minimal, 3 mild, 4 moderate, 5 severe, 6 extreme.
What is a DRSP chart?
DRSP stands for the Daily Record of Severity of Problems, a daily rating scale for premenstrual symptoms published by Endicott, Nee and Harrison in 2006. Each evening you rate a set of mood and body symptoms from 1 to 6, plus how much they got in the way of your day. It held up well in reliability testing, and its scores picked up changes during treatment (Endicott et al., 2006).
This chart is modelled on it. Its rows follow the PMDD symptoms in the DSM-5-TR, in everyday words, with one page for each of two cycles and 35 columns per page, so a long cycle still fits.
How do you fill in a PMDD symptom chart?
- Start tonight, whatever day of your cycle it is. Write the date at the top of the first column.
- Rate each row from 1 to 6 before bed, for the day as a whole. Your first answer is the right one. It takes about a minute.
- Mark your period: B on days you bleed, S for spotting. Circle the date it starts.
- Missed a day? Leave it blank and carry on the next evening.
What does a doctor look for on the chart?
A doctor looks at timing. PMS and PMDD both follow the cycle. Symptoms build in the days before a period and ease within a few days of it starting.
For PMDD, the DSM-5-TR asks for at least five symptoms, at least one of them a mood symptom (mood swings, irritability or anger, low mood, or anxiety), in the final week before the period. They ease within a few days of it starting, are minimal the week after, and get in the way of work, school, social life or relationships. The diagnosis is confirmed with daily ratings over at least two cycles.
If the rows stay high all month and rise before your period, that pattern fits premenstrual exacerbation, where a condition such as depression, anxiety or ADHD gets worse before the period. The chart shows which pattern you have.
Why two cycles of daily ratings?
Memory blurs timing. In a study of 200 women, what people remembered about their premenstrual symptoms was a poor guide to whether daily ratings showed PMDD (Eisenlohr-Moul et al., 2017). The International Society for Premenstrual Disorders asks for two months of daily records before a diagnosis (ISPMD, 2016).
PMDD affects about 3.2% of women and girls across studies that confirmed the diagnosis, against 7.7% on a provisional diagnosis made without daily ratings (Reilly et al., 2024). Two cycles of notes are what settles it either way.
If this takes a week of every month, or you have thoughts of hurting yourself, see a GP or gynecologist and bring two months of daily notes. For the moments in between, Niyora is a PMS and PMDD support app: it helps you feel calmer, see things another way, and choose what to say next.
Questions people ask
How do I get the printable DRSP chart?+
Enter your email in the form on this page and confirm it. The two-cycle chart arrives straight away as a PDF on US Letter and A4 paper, followed by one short email a week for eight weeks on reading it. You can unsubscribe from the weekly emails at any time and keep the chart.
Is the DRSP chart only for PMDD?+
A DRSP-style chart works for PMS as well as PMDD. The same daily ratings show whether symptoms build before your period and ease after it, which fits PMS or PMDD, or stay high all month, which points to another condition that worsens before the period.
What if my cycle is longer than 35 days?+
Each page of the chart has 35 columns. If your cycle runs longer, carry on onto the second page and print a fresh copy for the second cycle. What matters for a PMDD diagnosis is daily ratings across two full cycles, each with its period start date circled.