RT Book, Section
A1 Ford, Charles V.
A2 Ebert, Michael H.
A2 Loosen, Peter T.
A2 Nurcombe, Barry
A2 Leckman, James F.
SR Print(0)
ID 3287234
T1 Chapter 22. Somatoform Disorders
T2 CURRENT Diagnosis & Treatment: Psychiatry, 2e
YR 2008
FD 2008
PB The McGraw-Hill Companies
PP New York, NY
SN 978-0-07-142292-5
LK accessmedicine.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=3287234
RD 2024/04/24
AB Patients  who  somatize  psychosocial  distress  commonly  present  in  medical  clinical  settings.  Approximately  25%  of  patients  in  primary  care  demonstrate  some  degree  of  somatization,  and  at  least  10%  of  medical  or  surgical  patients  have  no  evidence  of  a  disease  process.  Somatizing  patients  use  a  disproportionately  large  amount  of  medical  services  and  frustrate  their  physicians,  who  often  do  not  recognize  the  true  nature  of  these  patients’  underlying  problems.  Somatizing  patients  rarely  seek  help  from  psychiatrists  at  their  own  initiative,  and  they  may  resent  any  implication  that  their  physical  distress  is  related  to  psychological  problems.  Despite  the  psychogenic  etiology  of  their  illnesses,  these  patients  continue  to  seek  medical  care  in  nonpsychiatric  settings  where  their  somatization  is  often  unrecognized.