The psychological features of distinct somatic syndromes: A cluster analysis according to population-based somatic symptom profiles, 2022, Huang et al

Background
Functional somatic syndromes (such as chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome) are often comorbid. Whether these syndromes are distinct constructs and whether they have different psychological features are interesting questions. We perform a cluster analysis based on a nationwide survey in Taiwan to answer these questions.

Methods
A score of at least 5 on the Patient Health Questionnaire-15 (PHQ-15, measuring somatic symptoms) indicated somatic syndromes and the data of 550 subjects were included. According to the gastrointestinal, pain–fatigue and cardiovascular subdimension scores of the PHQ-15, we performed a two-step cluster analysis. The demographic data and the cluster scores of the Health Anxiety Questionnaire and the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 (measuring depression and anxiety) were compared. Multinomial logistic and multiple linear regression analyses were used to clarify the associations between clusters/somatic symptoms and demographics/psychological features.

Results
Four clusters were generated and named according to their somatic features: “high gastrointestinal symptoms”, “high pain-fatigue and comorbid somatic symptoms”, “middle to high pain–fatigue symptoms” and “high cardiovascular symptoms”. The high pain–fatigue and comorbid somatic symptom cluster had the highest levels of extent to which symptoms interfere with a person's life, depression and anxiety. The high cardiovascular symptom cluster was featured by high excessive worry over health and illness and low educational level. The high gastrointestinal symptom cluster had relatively low psychopathologies.

Conclusion
The results of this population-based analysis supported the existence of distinct somatic syndromes that are not parts of a single whole somatic syndrome and have different psychological features.

Open access, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0929664622001115

 

This New Phrenology is all sorts of whack.

Weird to think that adding circular reasoning would improve the underlying concept.

 

Speechless

 

Authors are from the department of psychiatry. Surprise, surprise.

 

So much focus on depression and anxiety. That makes me depressed and anxious.

 

It still nonetheless undermines the theory that there is a common psychological basis for the "functional somatic" syndromes.

 

As long as anxiety is defined as excessive worry. Except here it isn't excessive, if anything it's massively downplayed. The "anxiety" that those questionnaires capture is either rational worries or dysautonomia. It's the person concerned with not eating tomorrow because this is what's happening to them that is rational, not the person confused by why this matters when they have plenty of food for themselves.

Psychosomatic medicine really screwed things when having failed to find things chronically ill people worry about, they simply invented the concept of generalized anxiety, which is worrying about specific things... generally. Makes no sense at all.

It's perfectly normal to worry about what the future holds when it's completely disrupted. Here it's entirely down to the physicians' perception that it's deemed excessive, simply because they don't understand what's happening.

It's not paranoia if they really are after you. That's usually said as a joke, but it's wild that people can't wrap their minds around the disruptive impact of prolonged illness simply because they're not experiencing it themselves.