Open DISTRESS Trial Functional Disorders - the DISTRESS Trial (DISTRESS), Regionshospitalet Silkeborg, Denmark

[Andy]

Study Overview

Brief Summary

A Diagnostic Clinic for Functional Somatic Disorders (FSD) has been set up at the outpatient diagnostic center at Regionshospitalet Silkeborg. The objective of the clinic is to support General Practitioners (GPs) by offering early stage diagnostic evaluation of whether a patient has an FSD or the symptoms were caused by another physical illness or mental disorder.

As a novelty in this project, Internal Medicine consultants examine the patients for FSD, after having received training in diagnosing FSD by FSD experts. By performing diagnostic evaluation for physical diseases and FSD simultaneously, the investigators believe that the new clinic shall be able to accelerate the establishment of a final diagnosis for these patients who would otherwise likely undergo a protracted diagnostic course involving sequential evaluations at various specialty clinics.

The DISTRESS trial is a pragmatic randomized clinical trial which aims to evaluate the Diagnostic Clinic for FSD in terms of clinical cost-effectiveness outcomes.

https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06025617

 

[Obermann]

Thanks for posting this study overview. Regionshospitalet Silkeborg is located in Denmark.

 

[Andy]

Thanks for posting this study overview. Regionshospitalet Silkeborg is located in Denmark.

Thanks, don't know why I put Sweden. I'll change it.

 

[Hutan]

What a nightmare. You want to be screened properly for physical causes of your symptoms, but to do so you have to go to a clinic where there is a high chance you will get a Functional Somatic Disorder slapped on you if nothing obvious is found. The DISTRESS trial indeed.

 

[Sean]

Superficially this is a reasonable approach. But will happen is that the failure to find a known physical cause will give licence to the functional interpretation to run free.

It is a very effective political tactic.

How robust are the physical assessments going to be? Will it be a panel of clinicians, or just one? Will they use more than just a simple checklist of basic possibilities? How exhaustive will it be?

What is the safety mechanism for an incorrect functional diagnosis? What will trigger a reassessment?

Will this study be keeping good long term records of the outcomes, particularly the consequences of failures to catch physical diseases?