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Alexithymia and Somatosensory Amplification Link Perceived Psychosocial Stress and Somatic Symptoms in Outpatients with Psychosomatic Illness

Background: Psychosomatic patients often complain of a variety of somatic symptoms. We sought to clarify the role of clinical predictors of complaints of somatic symptoms. Methods: We enrolled 604 patients visiting a psychosomatic outpatient clinic. The outcome was the total number of somatic sympto...

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Autores principales: Nakao, Mutsuhiro, Takeuchi, Takeaki
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5977151/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29748483
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jcm7050112
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author Nakao, Mutsuhiro
Takeuchi, Takeaki
author_facet Nakao, Mutsuhiro
Takeuchi, Takeaki
author_sort Nakao, Mutsuhiro
collection PubMed
description Background: Psychosomatic patients often complain of a variety of somatic symptoms. We sought to clarify the role of clinical predictors of complaints of somatic symptoms. Methods: We enrolled 604 patients visiting a psychosomatic outpatient clinic. The outcome was the total number of somatic symptoms, and the candidate clinical predictors were perceived psychosocial stress, alexithymia, somatosensory amplification, adaptation, anxiety, and depression. All participants completed questionnaires assessing the outcome and the predictors. Results: The average number of reported somatic symptoms was 4.8; the most frequent was fatigue (75.3%), followed by insomnia (56.1%), low-back pain (49.5%), headache (44.7%), and palpitations (43.1%). Multiple regression analysis showed that the total number of somatic symptoms was significantly associated with the degree of perceived psychosocial stress, alexithymia, somatosensory amplification, and depression. Also, structural equation models indicated links between excessive adaptation (via perceived psychosocial stress, alexithymia, and somatosensory amplification) and the total number of somatic symptoms. Conclusion: The results suggested that the association between psychosocial stress and reported somatic symptoms is mediated by alexithymia and somatosensory amplification in psychosomatic patients.
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spelling pubmed-59771512018-05-31 Alexithymia and Somatosensory Amplification Link Perceived Psychosocial Stress and Somatic Symptoms in Outpatients with Psychosomatic Illness Nakao, Mutsuhiro Takeuchi, Takeaki J Clin Med Article Background: Psychosomatic patients often complain of a variety of somatic symptoms. We sought to clarify the role of clinical predictors of complaints of somatic symptoms. Methods: We enrolled 604 patients visiting a psychosomatic outpatient clinic. The outcome was the total number of somatic symptoms, and the candidate clinical predictors were perceived psychosocial stress, alexithymia, somatosensory amplification, adaptation, anxiety, and depression. All participants completed questionnaires assessing the outcome and the predictors. Results: The average number of reported somatic symptoms was 4.8; the most frequent was fatigue (75.3%), followed by insomnia (56.1%), low-back pain (49.5%), headache (44.7%), and palpitations (43.1%). Multiple regression analysis showed that the total number of somatic symptoms was significantly associated with the degree of perceived psychosocial stress, alexithymia, somatosensory amplification, and depression. Also, structural equation models indicated links between excessive adaptation (via perceived psychosocial stress, alexithymia, and somatosensory amplification) and the total number of somatic symptoms. Conclusion: The results suggested that the association between psychosocial stress and reported somatic symptoms is mediated by alexithymia and somatosensory amplification in psychosomatic patients. MDPI 2018-05-10 /pmc/articles/PMC5977151/ /pubmed/29748483 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jcm7050112 Text en © 2018 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Nakao, Mutsuhiro
Takeuchi, Takeaki
Alexithymia and Somatosensory Amplification Link Perceived Psychosocial Stress and Somatic Symptoms in Outpatients with Psychosomatic Illness
title Alexithymia and Somatosensory Amplification Link Perceived Psychosocial Stress and Somatic Symptoms in Outpatients with Psychosomatic Illness
title_full Alexithymia and Somatosensory Amplification Link Perceived Psychosocial Stress and Somatic Symptoms in Outpatients with Psychosomatic Illness
title_fullStr Alexithymia and Somatosensory Amplification Link Perceived Psychosocial Stress and Somatic Symptoms in Outpatients with Psychosomatic Illness
title_full_unstemmed Alexithymia and Somatosensory Amplification Link Perceived Psychosocial Stress and Somatic Symptoms in Outpatients with Psychosomatic Illness
title_short Alexithymia and Somatosensory Amplification Link Perceived Psychosocial Stress and Somatic Symptoms in Outpatients with Psychosomatic Illness
title_sort alexithymia and somatosensory amplification link perceived psychosocial stress and somatic symptoms in outpatients with psychosomatic illness
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5977151/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29748483
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/jcm7050112
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