Can the bodily distress syndrome (BDS) concept be used to assess functional somatic symptoms in adolescence? 2022 Münker, Rosmalen et al

Highlights

• The Bodily distress syndrome (BDS) concept was demonstrated in adolescence.
• The BDS-25 checklist revealed good psychometric quality to assess BDS.
• Number of affected BDS symptom clusters indicated different illness severity.
• Emotional psychopathology was associated with more pronounced BDS symptoms.
• The BDS concept can be used to screen for functional somatic symptoms in adolescence.

Abstract

Objective
Bodily Distress Syndrome (BDS) represents a new research concept for adult patients with various functional somatic syndromes. We evaluated the utility of the BDS research concept and the associated BDS-25-checklist as a screening tool for diverse functional somatic symptoms (FSS) in adolescence by investigating: 1) the psychometric and factorial structures of the checklist, 2) symptom cluster patterns and 3) illness classification and associations with emotional psychopathology and sociodemographic factors.

Methods
This cross-sectional study obtained data from the 16/17-year follow-up (N = 2542) of the general population Copenhagen Child Cohort 2000 (CCC2000). We used self-reported questionnaires to assess physical symptoms (the BDS-25 checklist), overall health (KidScreen), emotional psychopathology (Spence Children's Anxiety Scale; The Mood and Feelings Questionnaire), and illness worry (Whiteley-6 Index), and utilized data from Danish national registers to assess sociodemographic factors.

Results
The BDS-25 checklist items displayed satisfactory psychometric data quality. Factor analyses revealed a similar four-factor model as reported in adults (factor loadings λ ≥0.5), representing distinct BDS symptom clusters: cardio-pulmonary, gastro-intestinal, musculoskeletal and general symptoms. Latent class analyses revealed a model with three latent classes, i.e. probable no to mild BDS, probable moderate, single-organ BDS and probable severe, multi-organ BDS, displaying acceptable class quality (Entropy = 0.904). Trend analyses revealed sociodemographic group differences across latent classes. Increased emotional psychopathology was associated with more pronounced BDS symptoms.

Conclusion
Our findings support the BDS concept with four symptom clusters and three illness severity groups (no BDS, single- organ and multi-organ BDS) to screen for FSS in adolescence.

Open access, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002239992200349X

 

Reverse of Betteridge's law of headlines - "Any research paper that ends in a question mark will be answered by the word Yes ".

 

I would guess that the BDS concept is very useful to any doctor who doesn't want to treat the patient sitting in front of them, or the patient is disbelieved.

 

Sure, you can use a water dowsing rod to find, I don't know, rivers of kool-aid. Works just the same because there's literally no difference.

This is like asking is that spirit a ghost or a lich, as if it makes any difference. They're both made-up things anyway.