Somatic symptom disorder and health care utilization in the general population (original) (raw)
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BMC Psychiatry, 2010
Background: To investigate the validity and stability of a Portuguese version for the Screening for Somatoform Symptoms-2 (SOMS-2) in primary care (PC) settings. Methods: An adapted version of the SOMS-2 was filled in by persons attending a PC unit. All medically unexplained symptoms were further ascertained in a clinical interview and by contacting the patient's physicians and examining medical records, attaining a final clinical symptom evaluation (FCSE). An interview yielded the diagnosis of Clinical Somatization (CS) and the diagnosis of current depressive and anxiety disorders. Results: From the eligible subjects, 167 agreed to participate and 34.1% of them were diagnosed with somatization. The correlation between the number of self-reported and FCSE symptoms was 0.63. After excluding symptoms with low frequency, low discriminative power and not correlated with the overall scale, 29 were retained in the final version. A cut-off of 4 symptoms gave a sensitivity of 86.0% and a specificity of 95.5% on the FCSE and 56.1% and 93.6% at selfreport. Stability in the number of symptoms after 6 months was good (k = 0.57).
BMC Family Practice, 2014
Background: Further research on effective interventions for patients with peristent Medically Unexplained Physical Symptoms (MUPS) in general practice is needed. Prevalence estimates of such patients are conflicting, and other descriptive knowledge is needed for development and evaluation of effective future interventions. In this study, we aimed to estimate the consultation prevalence of patients with persistent MUPS in general practice, including patients' characteristics and symptom pattern, employment status and use of social benefits, and the general practitioners' (GPs) management strategy. Method: During a four-week period the participating Norwegian GPs (n = 84) registered all consultations with patients who met a strict definition of MUPS (>3 months duration and function loss), using a questionnaire with simple tick-off questions. Analyses were performed with descriptive statistics for all variables and split analysis on gender and age.
The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 2003
Patients commonly present in primary care with symptoms for which no physical pathology can be found. This study is a review of published research on medically unexplained symptoms (MUPS) in primary care. A literature review and qualitative comparison of information was carried out. Four questions were addressed: what is the prevalence of MUPS; to what extent do MUPS overlap with psychiatric disorder; which psychological processes are important in patients with MUPS; and what interventions are beneficial? Neither somatised mental distress nor somatisation disorders, based on symptom counts, adequately account for most patients seen with MUPS. There is substantial overlap between different symptoms and syndromes, suggesting they have much in common. Patients with MUPS may best be viewed as having complex adaptive systems in which cognitive and physiological processes interact with each other and with their environment. Cognitive behavioural therapy and antidepressant drugs are both e...
Family Practice, 2021
Background Patients with mental health problems often present with somatic symptoms when visiting their general practitioner (GP). Somatic presentations may challenge correct diagnosing of mental health disorders in general practice, where most of these disorders are treated. Objective Explore the associations between common psychological diagnoses and somatic symptom diagnoses in Norwegian urban general practice. Methods A retrospective cohort study including electronic medical data from 15 750 patients aged 16–65 years from 35 GPs in six GP offices in Oslo, Norway, during 12 months in 2014–2015. We explored prevalences and associations between anxiety-, depression-, and stress-related diagnoses, and somatic symptom diagnoses. Results Patients with anxiety-, depression- and stress-related diagnoses had a mean number of 2.9±3.6 somatic symptom diagnoses during the 12 months, compared to 1.9±2.5 for patients without any psychological diagnoses (P < 0.001). The mean number of somat...
Unexplained physical symptoms: outcome, utilization of medical care and associated factors
Psychological Medicine, 1996
SYNOPSIS The aim of the study was to investigate the recovery and frequency of physician contact in patients with unexplained physical symptoms and to identify factors associated with persistent disorder. Of 100 consecutive patients who presented with medically unexplained symptoms to a general medical out-patient clinic, 81 participated in a follow-up study. The mean follow-up time was 15-2 months (s.D. 40). At follow-up, many of the patients with unexplained physical symptoms reported that they had recovered (30%) or improved (46%) with regard to their presenting symptoms. Female sex and a high number of symptoms predicted a bad outcome in terms of recovery. Persistence of symptoms was not related to the duration of the symptoms, type of presenting complaint or the presence of psychiatric disorder. Forty per cent of patients with unexplained symptoms did not visit their general practitioner on their own initiative in the year following the initial visit to the clinic. Medical care utilization appeared to be associated with female sex, age, number and duration of symptoms, fatigue and psychiatric disorder, especially somatoform disorders. However, the association of a high frequency of physican contact with female sex and psychiatric disorder was not sustained after controlling for possible confounding factors.
The epidemiology of multiple somatic symptoms
Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 2012
Health-related quality of life Background: The risk factors for a high total somatic symptom count are unclear; and it is not known whether total somatic symptoms count is a predictor of impaired health status. Method: A prospective population-based cohort study in North West England. Randomly sampled residents (1443 participants; 58% response) completed questionnaires to determine number of somatic symptoms (SSI), health status and a wide range of risk factors; 741 completed questionnaires 1 year later. We used logistic regression to identify risk factors for high SSI at follow-up and for persistently high SSI. We used ANCOVAR and multiple regression to assess whether baseline SSI predicted health status at follow-up. Results: Twenty-one percent of participants scored over 25 on the Somatic Symptom Inventory (SSI) at baseline and 14% at both baseline and follow-up. Risk factors for a persistent high SSI were: fewer than 12 years of education, separated, widowed or divorced status, reported psychological abuse during childhood, co-existing medical illnesses, anxiety and depression. In multivariate analysis baseline SSI predicted health status (SF12 physical component score and health-related quality of life (EuroQol)) 12 months later. Persistent high SSI was a clinically meaningful predictor of these outcomes. Conclusions: Our data support a biopsychosocial approach to somatic symptoms rather than the dualistic approach of identifying "medically unexplained" symptoms. The risk factors for total somatic symptom count were those associated with psychiatric disorders including physical illness. A persistent high somatic symptom count provides a readily measured dimension of importance in epidemiology as a predictor of health status.
Are medically unexplained symptoms and functional disorders predictive for the illness course?
Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 2011
Objective: To investigate whether the general practitioners' (GP) diagnosis of medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) and/or the diagnosis functional disorders (FD) can predict the patients' 2-year outcome in relation to physical and mental health and health care utilisation. Furthermore, to identify relevant clinical factors which may help the GP predict the patient's outcome. Method: The study included 38 GPs and 1785 consecutive patients who presented a new health problem. The GPs completed a questionnaire on diagnosis for each patient. Patients completed the Common Mental Disorder Questionnaire (CMDQ) and the SF-36 questionnaire at baseline and after 24 months. A stratified sample of 701 patients was diagnosed with a psychiatric research interview. Data on health cost was obtained from national registers. Results: A FD diagnosis following the research interview was associated with a decline in physical health (OR 3.27(95%CI 1.84-5.81)), but this was not the case with MUS diagnosed by the GP. MUS was associated with a poor outcome on mental health (OR 2.16 (95%CI 1.07-4.31)). More than 4 symptoms were associated with a poor outcome on physical health (OR 5.35 (95%CI 2.28-12.56)) and on mental health (OR 2.17(95%CI 1.02-4.59)). Neither FD nor MUS were associated with higher total health care use. However, FD (OR 2.31 (95%CI 1.24-4.31)) and MUS (OR 1.98(95%CI 1.04-3.75)) was associated with increased cost in primary care. Conclusion: Our current diagnoses of MUS show limitations in their prediction of the patients' illness course. Although, the ICD-10 diagnoses of functional disorders was not developed for the primary care setting, our results indicate that some of its elements would be useful to bring in when rethinking the diagnosis for MUS in primary care, elements that are easily obtainable for the GP in a normal consultation. Our results may contribute to the construction of a more useful diagnostic for these patients in primary care.
Trajectories of a set of ten functional somatic symptoms from adolescence to middle age
Archives of Public Health, 2017
Background: Functional somatic symptoms (FSS), or symptoms without a clear medical explanation are a considerable challenge for health care systems. There is no general consensus as to which symptoms should be regarded functional. Few longitudinal studies on the development of FSS exist and these have mainly been based on the assumption that the factorial structure of a FSS scores variable remains invariant over time. When the analysis covers longer periods of the life course, this may be challenged. The aim of our study was to investigate how ten functional somatic symptoms (FSS) evolve when individuals are ageing. Methods: The data of the Northern Swedish Cohort (n = 1001) from questionnaire surveys at ages 16, 18, 21, 30 and 42, were analysed. Participation rates remained very high over the five surveys. The list of symptoms included backache, breathlessness, dizziness, fatigue, headache or migraine, nausea, overstrain, palpitations, sleeplessness and stomach ache. We used multivariate trajectory analysis (TA) with logistic broken-stick regression models to describe subgroups in the data. In multivariate TA the joint development of the set of item variables can be investigated. There is no need to construct a special FSS summary score variable. Results: Four well separated trajectories were identified. In two groups, healing symptoms (25.4% of the sample) and low symptom load (32.2% of the sample), the symptom level stayed relatively low in adulthood. In the third group of high symptom load (17.2%) the probability of having symptoms was high for all FSS variables. In the fourth group of increasing symptoms (25.3%) the level of symptoms was first intermediate, but increased markedly with age. Conclusions: Instead of a single FSS score we were able to assign each individual to one of four trajectories described jointly by 10 separate symptoms. The profile of development, but not the probability level, was rather similar over the symptoms within the trajectories, with few exceptions. The results provide better understanding of the longitudinal development of the symptoms from the adolescence to the middle age.