Associations between sex hormones, sleep problems and depression 221 2.1. Search protocol Relevant studies were identified by searching PubMed, Embase/Ovid, PsychINFO/Ovid, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews/Wiley, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials/Wiley, and Web of Science/Clarivate Analytics from inception up to December 3rd 2019 (by MM and DW and SPV, information specialist). The following terms, including synonyms and closely related words, were used as index terms or free-text words: ‘sex hormones’, ‘sleep’ and ‘depression’. All three search terms had to be present in title or abstract. Full search strategies for all databases are available as Supplementary Information/appendix. No language or other restrictions were applied to any of the searches. Outside the defined search terms in aforementioned databases, no other sources were searched. Duplicate articles were excluded by the information specialist (SPV) using EndNote (Thomson Reuters, 2017). 2.2. Eligibility criteria Studies were included if they were empirical published studies after 1998. When a conference abstract was found, the full text study was searched for inclusion. If no full text was available, studies were not included. Additional criteria were: a. The study participants, or at least one group of participants in the study, had to be of reproductive age (18 to 45 years old), non-menopausal (regularly menstruating) and healthy (e.g. no chronic illnesses, no endocrine disorders, no pregnancy (in women), no PCOS (in women), no endometriosis (in women), no known infertility problems, no reported psychiatric diagnoses except for depression or PMDD). b. The study reported both sleep measurements, as well as symptoms of depression or diagnoses of depression. c. The study either used interventions to exogenously influence sex hormone levels, or measured endogenous sex hormone levels. a. Studies that assessed hormones were only included if they measured estrogen, testosterone and/or progesterone. b. Intervention studies were only included if they provided pre- and post-intervention measurements of both sleep and mood reports. All included studies were carried out in accordance with the declaration of Helsinki; all participants provided informed consent.
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