Patients with somatoform disorders are prone to expensive and potentially harmful medical procedures

Are illness perceptions related to future healthcare expenditure in patients with somatoform disorders?

BACKGROUND Somatoform disorders are costly for society in terms of increased healthcare expenditure. Patients' illness perceptions have been found to play a role in somatoform disorders. However, it is unclear whether illness perceptions predict higher health costs in these patients. METHOD A total of 1785 primary care patients presenting a new health complaint completed a questionnaire on th...

Guardian ad litem, a potentially expensive invitation to either the mismanagement or management of patients with cognitive disorders

The children of a multiple sclerosis (MS) patient filed a guardian ad litem case to be brought against the patient. The basis for the petition was that the MS patient had a significant reduction is his mental competence. The children were not aware that hyperthermia could adversely affect the brain of MS patients. The patient's urologist recommended he have a suprapubic cystostomy done in a hos...

Somatoform disorders.

The somatoform disorders are a group of psychiatric disorders that cause unexplained physical symptoms. They include somatization disorder (involving multisystem physical symptoms), undifferentiated somatoform disorder (fewer symptoms than somatization disorder), conversion disorder (voluntary motor or sensory function symptoms), pain disorder (pain with strong psychological involvement), hypoc...

Dissociative and Somatoform Disorders

Disclosing harmful medical errors to patients.

From the Department of Medicine and the Department of Medical History and Ethics, University of Washington, Seattle (T.H.G.); the Melbourne Law School and the School of Population Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia (D.S.); and the University of Toronto, Toronto (W.L.). Address reprint requests to Dr. Gallagher at the Department of Medicine, University of Washington, P.O. Box ...