BACKGROUND Reliable longitudinal data of patients with functional somatic symptoms in general practice are lacking. AIMS To identify distinctive features in patients with chronic functional somatic symptoms, and to determine whether these symptoms support the hypothesis of the existence of specific somatic syndromes. DESIGN OF STUDY Observational study, with a comparison control group. SE...

INTRODUCTION Somatic symptoms are frequently reported by children with significant impairment in functioning. Despite studies on adult populations that suggest somatic symptoms often co-occur with difficulties in identifying and describing feelings, little research has been done in childhood. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence and frequency of somatic symptoms as well as to investig...

Objective: The present study was done to investigate the mediating role of cognitive emotion regulation strategies in the relationship between early maladaptive schemas, alexithymia, and emotional intelligence with the somatic symptoms in people with somatic symptom disorder (SSD). Methods: The research population consisted of 360 people with SSD referred to the psychosomatic department of Tal...

Objective: Somatic symptom disorder (SSD) is characterized by somatic symptoms that are very distressing or cause considerable functional disability. SSD is associated with various medical and psychiatric conditions and imposes high costs on the patient's health care system. Therefore, diagnosis and treatment of SSD are crucial. The Somatic Symptom Scale-8 (SSS-8) is a valuable and brief self-r...

BACKGROUND Both depressive and somatic symptoms are significant predictors of parenting and coparenting problems. However, despite clear evidence of their co-occurrence, no study to date has examined the association between depressive-somatic symptoms clusters and parenting and coparenting. The current research sought to identify and cross-validate clusters of cognitive-affective depressive sym...

*Correspondence “A fellow psychiatrist once told an anecdote. He was at a conference about depression in developing countries. The essence of the lectures was that people in those areas commonly expressed depression as physical symptoms. They ‘somaticize’ their depression, to use the medical parlance, complaining of malaise, stomach aches, dizziness and other symptoms that are hard to pin down....

The treatment pattern observed correlates with the worldwide changing trends in the treatment of schizophrenia. In recent years, the introduction of newer atypical antipsychotic agents like olanzapine, risperidone, quetiapine and ziprasidone have provided a better control of symptoms and reduced adverse effects especially the extrapyramidal ones in contrast with older drugs. The newer atypical ...