Journal of Psychosomatic Research ( IF 3.5 ) Pub Date : 2021-05-10 , DOI: 10.1016/j.jpsychores.2021.110509 Min Ma 1 , Zhidao Shi 2 , Heng Wu 3 , Xiquan Ma 4
Objective
Somatoform disorders are frequently accompanied by panic attack and causes many clinical symptoms. This study aimed to compare clinical features between patients with and without panic attack in somatoform disorder.
Methods
In this cross-sectional study, 341 patients with somatoform disorder according to the MINI-International Neuropsychiatric Interview (M.I.N·I.) were divided into two groups depending on with or without comorbidity of a panic attack, somatoform disorder with a panic attack (SPA, n = 88) and those without panic attack (SNPA, n = 253). Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-15), Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) and 7-item Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD-7) scale was used to identify correlations between SPA group and SNPA group, respectively. Correlation analysis and multivariate regression analysis were used to determine the effects of demographic factors and psychiatric diagnoses on somatic, depressive and anxiety symptoms separately.
Results
The SPA group's PHQ-15, PHQ-9 and GAD-7 scores were significantly higher than those of the SNPA group. Multiple linear regression analyses revealed that the associated factors for PHQ-15 were gender and panic disorder. PHQ-9 was just significantly associated with panic disorder. GAD-7 was significantly associated with education degree and panic disorder.
Conclusions
Our results suggest that somatoform disorder patients with panic attack suffered more severe clinical symptoms than those without a panic attack.