Characteristics and economic burden of patients with somatoform disorders in Chinese general hospitals: a multicenter cross-sectional study

Annals of General Psychiatry

Research

Jing Sun¹  Zhanjiang Li²  Cong Wang³  Yue He³  Jia Luo³  Xiangyun Yang³  Pengchong Wang³  Lijuan Yang³ 

[1] School of Medicine and Dentistry, Griffith University, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia;Institute of Integrated Intelligence and Systems, Griffith University, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia;The National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders & Beijing Key Laboratory of Mental Disorders, Beijing Anding Hospital, Capital Medical University, No. 5 Ankang Hutong Deshengmen Wai, Xicheng District, 100088, Beijing, China;The National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders & Beijing Key Laboratory of Mental Disorders, Beijing Anding Hospital, Capital Medical University, No. 5 Ankang Hutong Deshengmen Wai, Xicheng District, 100088, Beijing, China;Advanced Innovation Center for Human Brain Protection, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China;

关键词: Somatoform disorders;    Self-screening Questionnaire for Somatic Symptoms;    Characteristic;    Economic burden;    General hospital;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12991-023-00457-y

 received in 2023-03-16, accepted in 2023-07-23,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundIn China, patients with somatoform disorders (SFD) often seek medical treatment repeatedly in outpatient clinics of general hospitals, which increases unreasonable medical expenses. It is imperative to provide early screening to these patients and specialized treatment to reduce the unnecessary cost. This study aimed to screen patients with SFD in general hospitals using a new Chinese questionnaire and explore the characteristics and economic burden of these patients.MethodsPatients (n = 1497) from the outpatient department of neurology, cardiology and gastroenterology of three large general hospitals were included. Participants were screened using a newly developed questionnaire, the Self-screening Questionnaire for Somatic Symptoms (SQSS), to identify the patients with SFD (total SQSS score ≥ 29 points). We compared the demographics and clinical information of patients with and without SFD. Logistic regression was used to explore potential factors related to medical expenses, visits to doctors and sick leave days taken.ResultsThe frequency of detection of patients with SFD was 17.03%. There were significant differences in employment, doctor visits, symptom duration, medical expenses, sick leave days, PHQ-15 scores, and PHQ-9 scores between patients with SFD and without SFD. General nonspecific somatic symptoms were frequently present in patients with SFD. Several potential factors were associated with higher medical expenses, repeated doctor visits, and sick leave days taken in the regression analysis.ConclusionThe findings indicate that patients with SFD are common in general hospitals, and their direct and indirect economic burden is higher than that of non-SFD patients, which indicates that more screening effort should be made to this group to early identify their problems. Certain characteristics were identified among patients with SFD and several factors were associated with negative consequences of SFD, all of which might be prevented by developing a preventive intervention program to reduce the economic burden of the patients.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© BioMed Central Ltd., part of Springer Nature 2023

【 图 表 】

Fig. 3