A multicenter study of bodily distress syndrome in Chinese outpatient hospital care: prevalence and associations with psychosocial variables

TY - JOUR

T1 - A multicenter study of bodily distress syndrome in Chinese outpatient hospital care: prevalence and associations with psychosocial variables

AU - Ma, Jing

AU - Zheng, Linli

AU - Chen, Ran

AU - Ren, Jie

AU - Chen, Hua

AU - Zhang, Yaoyin

AU - Li, Wentian

AU - Ma, Xiquan

AU - Lu, Wei

AU - Wu, Heng

AU - Fritzsche, Kurt

AU - Toussaint, Anne-Kristin

AU - Leonhart, Rainer

AU - Wei, Jing

AU - Zhang, Lan

PY - 2022/11/24

Y1 - 2022/11/24

N2 - BackgroundBodily distress syndrome (BDS) is a new, empirical-based diagnosis of functional somatic symptoms. This study aimed to explore the prevalence of BDS and its association with psychosocial variables in a Chinese clinical population.MethodsA multicentre cross-sectional study of 1269 patients was conducted in 9 different Chinese tertiary outpatient hospitals. The BDS was identified by trained interviewers face-to face, based on a brief version of the Schedules for Assessment in Neuropsychiatry (RIFD) and the BDS Checklist-25. Sociodemographic data and further information were characterised from psychometric questionnaires (The Patient Health Questionnaire-15, the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, the General Anxiety Disorder-7, the Whiteley scale-8) .ResultsComplete data were available for 697 patients. The prevalence of BDS was 26.8% (95% confidence interval (CI): 23.5–30.1). Among the participants, 5.8% (95% CI: 4.1–7.6) fulfilled the criteria for single-organ BDS, while 20.9% (95%CI: 17.9–24.0) had multi-organ BDS. Comparison of the PHQ-15, PHQ-9, GAD-7, and WI-8 scores revealed higher scores on all dimensions for patients with BDS. In a binary logistic regression analysis, BDS was significantly associated with increased health-related anxiety (WI-8) and depression (PHQ-9). The explained variance was Nagelkerke’s R2 = 0.42.ConclusionsIn China, the BDS is a common clinical condition in tertiary outpatient hospital settings with high prevalence, and is associated with health anxiety and depressive symptoms. In this clinical population, the severe multi-organ subtype of BDS was the most frequent.

AB - BackgroundBodily distress syndrome (BDS) is a new, empirical-based diagnosis of functional somatic symptoms. This study aimed to explore the prevalence of BDS and its association with psychosocial variables in a Chinese clinical population.MethodsA multicentre cross-sectional study of 1269 patients was conducted in 9 different Chinese tertiary outpatient hospitals. The BDS was identified by trained interviewers face-to face, based on a brief version of the Schedules for Assessment in Neuropsychiatry (RIFD) and the BDS Checklist-25. Sociodemographic data and further information were characterised from psychometric questionnaires (The Patient Health Questionnaire-15, the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, the General Anxiety Disorder-7, the Whiteley scale-8) .ResultsComplete data were available for 697 patients. The prevalence of BDS was 26.8% (95% confidence interval (CI): 23.5–30.1). Among the participants, 5.8% (95% CI: 4.1–7.6) fulfilled the criteria for single-organ BDS, while 20.9% (95%CI: 17.9–24.0) had multi-organ BDS. Comparison of the PHQ-15, PHQ-9, GAD-7, and WI-8 scores revealed higher scores on all dimensions for patients with BDS. In a binary logistic regression analysis, BDS was significantly associated with increased health-related anxiety (WI-8) and depression (PHQ-9). The explained variance was Nagelkerke’s R2 = 0.42.ConclusionsIn China, the BDS is a common clinical condition in tertiary outpatient hospital settings with high prevalence, and is associated with health anxiety and depressive symptoms. In this clinical population, the severe multi-organ subtype of BDS was the most frequent.

U2 - 10.1186/s12888-022-04342-y

DO - 10.1186/s12888-022-04342-y

M3 - SCORING: Journal article

VL - 22

SP - 733

JO - BMC PSYCHIATRY

JF - BMC PSYCHIATRY

SN - 1471-244X

IS - 1

M1 - 733

ER -