Sociodemographic and hospital characteristics for patients with severe functional disorder receiving specialized treatment... 2023 Korsgaard Brund+

Full title: Sociodemographic and hospital characteristics for patients with severe functional disorder receiving specialized treatment at hospital. A regional register-based cross-sectional study from Denmark

Objective
10% of all adult Danish citizen has a functional disorder (FD). This study aimed to describe how patients referred to specialized treatment (CFD; Clinic for Functional Disorders) differentiate from those not referred to specialized treatment in terms of sex, comorbidty, different types of hospital contacts and affiliation to labour market 12 and 60 months prior discharged from the hospital with a FD-diagnosis between 2019 and 2021.

Methods
The study was a register-based cross-sectional study of patients discharged with a FD in North Denmark Region between 2019 and 2021 (study period). Patients between 18 and 65 years of age with FD were identified in the regional patient administrative system.

Results
A total of 6831 patients were discharged from the hospital with a FD, of which 160 were referred to CFD. Patients with FD were more likely to be referred to CFD, if they were female, had reduced or no affiliation to the labour market or most hospital contacts were as outpatient. Moreover, an increase in hospital contacts as outpatient and a reduction in affiliation to labour market over time increased the chance of being treated at CFD.

Conclusion
Patients referred to CFD differed from patients not referred to CFD. Patients referred to CFD were to a lesser extent affiliated to the labour market but had more often hospital contacts as outpatient prior to being discharged with FD. In addition, patients referred to CFD increased their contacts to the hospital as outpatient more than those not referred during the preceding 5 years from discharge with FD.

Paywall, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002239992300418X

 

"Introduction

Functional disorder (FD) is typically characterized by the presence of one or multiple chronic symptoms, that reduces functional capacity and quality of life, which cannot be attributed to a known somatic disease [1]. The diagnosis/term FD is a relatively new although the condition and the suffering it causes for the patient is well known and has been for a long time. So far FD has been classified in the International Classification of Primary Care (ICPC), ICD-10 and DSM-IV predominately under the group of somatoform conditions (P75/F45.0–9), whilst the condition in somatic specialty has been categorized in functional syndrome diagnosis [2]. The latter covers conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, whiplash associated disorders, multiple chemical sensitivity among others."

 

Indicating that a condition is not known, and is therefore a functional disorder, while at the same time knowing enough about the condition to give it a specific name, in this case "chronic fatigue syndrome", indicates that the condition is known, and is differentiated from other illnesses as a separate entity.

Also, as regards "cfs" not being known, there is a substantial amount of government, and non-governmental information about chronic fatigue syndrome, including the fact it is designated as a disease by the National Academy of Medicine, and is now called myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome. There are detailed case definitions for this disease included in the following:

https://www.cdc.gov/me-cfs/about/index.html

https://nap.nationalacademies.org/c...hronic-fatigue-syndrome-redefining-an-illness

https://www.nih.gov/mecfs/about-mecfs

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/chronic-fatigue-syndrome-cfs/diagnosis/

https://www.mefmaction.com/images/stories/Overviews/ME-Overview.pdf

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-2796.2011.02428.x

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases...gue-syndrome/diagnosis-treatment/drc-20360510

 

Searching on Google scholar for "functional disorder", over 9K+ papers from 1900-1910, over 17K in the 19th century and 16K in total for the first half of the 20th century. Somatoform has much fewer hits, but the term also began in the 19th century.

Relatively new on a geological time scale? A historical time scale? On that basis, AIDS is basically brand spanking new. What BS. This pseudoscience is completely out of control. "We don't know" is not a category of knowledge.