A step towards a new delimitation of functional somatic syndromes: A latent class analysis of symptoms in a population-based cohort study 2018

[Hoopoe]

A step towards a new delimitation of functional somatic syndromes: A latent class analysis of symptoms in a population-based cohort study 2018

Marie Eliasen, Andreas Schröder, Per Fink, Svend Kreiner, Thomas Meinertz Dantoft, Chalotte Heinsvig Poulsen, Marie Weinreich Petersen, Lene Falgaard Eplov, Sine Skovbjerg, Torben Jørgensen
http://www.jpsychores.com/article/S0022-3999(17)31227-8/abstract

 

[Hoopoe]

I find this worrying because these authors are proponents of the "bodily distress syndrome" and it sounds like they intend to create a psychological diagnosis that encompasses all unexplained states of multi-symptomatic illness. If you thought CBT/GET was bad, this has the potential to be ten times worse by redirecting a much larger number of patients with poorly understood health problems towards psychotherapy services, not to support, but to silence and marginalize (a previous study by one of the authors essentially asked doctors to refer frustrating cases). Judging from the CBT/GET situation, research funding will also be redirected towards worthless placebo therapies and fatally flawed studies that are done solely to keep the funding coming in and the psychological services running.

Also see http://blogs.plos.org/mindthebrain/...y-for-whatever-ails-your-physician-about-you/

 

[Trish]

Highlights
•Symptom profiles identified in the population can be described by specific symptom combinations.
•Health status and impact of symptoms differ according to specific symptom combinations.
•The symptom profiles with most symptoms had poorest health status, but with notable differences.
•The findings were similar when excluding multi-symptomatic, self-reported chronic disease.
•Delimitation of functional somatic syndromes should account for specific symptom combinations.

Abstract
Objectives
The current delimitation of functional somatic syndromes (FSS) is inconsistent. We aimed to investigate somatic symptom profiles in the general adult population to contribute to a new, data-driven delimitation of FSS.

Methods
Information on 31 self-reported somatic symptoms used in the delimitation of various FSS and bodily distress syndrome (BDS) was obtained from the DanFunD study—a population-based cohort study on 9656 adults (participation 33.6%) from Greater Copenhagen, Denmark. Latent class analysis was used to identify symptom profiles. The profiles were described by their relation with sex, age, chronic disease, self-perceived health, symptom impact, self-reported FSS, and BDS case-status.

Results
Eight symptom profiles were identified. The largest profile had no symptoms (49% of the population). Three profiles were characterized by a few, specific symptoms: muscle and joint pain (17%), gastrointestinal symptoms (6%), and general symptoms (13%). Three profiles had multiple symptoms in specific combinations: musculoskeletal and general symptoms (7%); fatigue, musculoskeletal and gastrointestinal symptoms (3%); and cardiopulmonary, gastrointestinal and general symptoms (3%). Lastly, one profile (2%) had high probability of all symptoms. The last four profiles (15%) were strongly associated with BDS case-status, poor self-perceived health and high impact of symptoms. Analyses excluding persons with multi-symptomatic chronic disease showed similar results.

Conclusions
We identified eight symptom profiles characterized by specific combinations of symptoms. Four of these had multiple symptoms from several bodily systems showing large overlap with BDS, possibly indicating subtypes of FSS. The profiles contribute to a new delimitation of FSS by illustrating the importance of specific symptom combinations.

 

[Trish]

So what they are saying is, we looked at data from medical records of lots of Danish people and found quite a few had collections of symptoms that we can group in different ways. So let's call them all Bodily Distress Syndrome, and mess around dividing them into different groups, but really they are all BDS anyway.