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Abstract

Patients with somatization disorder (SD) endorse high rates of psychiatric symptoms. However, prior studies have not addressed whether these endorsed symptoms reflect underlying psychiatric illness or whether they represent symptom overendorsement mirroring somatic complaints in patients with SD. Thirty-two female outpatients with SD and 101 with other psychiatric disorders completed a checklist of current and lifetime psychiatric symptoms. These findings were analyzed with respect to the diagnoses given by their treating psychiatrists. Patients with SD displayed significantly more current and lifetime psychiatric symptoms than did patients without either SD or cluster B personality disorder. Patients with SD endorsed a large number of psychotic, manic, depressive, and anxiety symptoms; however, they endorsed few alcohol use disorder symptoms. Psychotic and manic symptoms endorsed by patients with SD did not reflect their clinical diagnoses: only two patients with SD carried an additional clinician diagnosis of either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, despite high rates of endorsed symptoms by the group. Patients with cluster B personality disorders but without SD showed a symptom profile similar to that of patients with SD. Psychiatric outpatients with SD endorse many more psychiatric symptoms than do other psychiatric patients. Patients with SD in the psychiatric treatment setting may mimic other psychiatric illnesses; therefore, SD should be considered in the differential diagnosis for a wide variety of psychiatric illness, including psychotic and mood disorders.

The Classification of Hysteria and Related Disorders: Historical and Phenomenological Considerations

“…DeSouza and colleagues [ 95 ] reported that patients with somatization disorder had significantly greater numbers of depressive symptoms even than patients diagnosed with major depressive disorder. Consistent with this observation, North and her research team [ 59 ] found that patients with somatization disorder acknowledged significantly as many or more current and lifetime symptoms of other psychiatric disorders compared to patients with other psychiatric disorders but without somatization disorder, although almost none of the somatization disorder patients met diagnostic criteria for these other diagnoses. Patients in this study with cluster B personality disorders (predominantly borderline personality disorder) without somatization disorder also endorsed as many psychiatric symptoms of these other disorders as patients with somatization disorder, significantly more than patients with other Axis I psychiatric disorders.…”

“…Psychoform symptoms from the Perley-Guze criteria for Briquet’s syndrome that were not included in DSM-III criteria for somatization disorder included anxiety (nervousness, fears), depressive (low mood, crying, hopelessness, suicidal ideation), and psychotic (hallucinations) symptoms [ 14 ]. The term “psychoform” as defined by North et al was subsequently applied by Wetzel, Guze, Cloninger, Martin, and Clayton [ 58 ] (p. 565) and has also appeared in several other academic publications [ 16 , 17 , 59 , 60 ].…”

“…Hudziak’s group [ 96 ], however, found Briquet’s syndrome to be more prevalent than somatization disorder in their patients with borderline personality disorder. This seemingly inconsistent finding likely reflects the inclusion of psychoform symptoms in the definition of Briquet’s syndrome but not in the definition of somatization disorder and is resonant with the characteristic comorbidity of symptoms of many psychiatric disorders found among patients with borderline personality disorder [ 59 ]. Hudziak and colleagues [ 96 ] commented on the amount of shared clinical characteristics between Briquet’s syndrome and borderline personality disorder.…”

Types of Attitudes Towards the Disease in Women with Different Durations of Somatization Disorders

“…Ранее большое значение в развитии СР придавалось наличию истерических черт. В настоящее время получены результаты о роли преморбидного склада личности других типов (с преобладанием тревожных, сенситивных, шизоидных, пограничных и других черт), что не позволяет рассматривать истерические черты личности как единственные, характерные для больных СР (Чижова, 2012;Собенников, 2014;Прибытков, Юркова и Баженова, 2016;Tomenson et al, 2012;Lenze, Miller, & Munir, et al, 1999).…”