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Somatoform Disorders Among First-Time Referrals to a Neurology Service

Received Nov. 10, 2003; revision received Nov. 26, 2004; accepted Feb. 4, 2005. From the Research Clinic for Functional Disorders and Psychosomatics, Aarhus University Hospital; the Department of Psychiatric Demography, Psychiatric Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark; and the Department of Psychiatry, Vejle County Hospital, Vejle, Denmark. Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Fink, Research Clinic for Functional Disorders and Psychosomatics, Aarhus University Hospital, Noerrebrogade 44, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark; flip{at}as.aaa.dk (e-mail).

Consecutive new neurology inpatients and outpatients (N=198) were assessed for somatoform disorders by using the Schedules for Clinical Assessment in Neuropsychiatry. Sixty-one percent of the patients (59% of the female patients and 63% of the male patients) had at least one medically unexplained symptom, and 34.9% fulfilled the diagnostic criteria for an ICD-10 somatoform disorder (27.7% of the male patients, 41.3% of the female patients, 20.5% of the inpatients, and 43.2% of the outpatients). The prevalence figures were about the same when DSM-IV criteria for somatoform disorders were used. Of the patients with a somatoform disorder, 60.5% also had another mental disorder. Somatization disorder, somatoform autonomic dysfunction, pain disorder, and neurasthenia were equally prevalent (6%–7%); dissociative (conversion) disorders and undifferentiated somatoform disorders were found in 2–3% of the patients. Fifty percent of the patients with somatoform disorders were identified by the neurologists.

Key Words: Somatoform disorders • prevalence • neurological patients • comorbidity • recognition • neurasthenia • chronic fatigue syndrome • medically unexplained symptoms

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