Somatoform Disorders Among First-Time Referrals to a Neurology Service

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.