Assessing emotional distress at the internist's office.
At their first visits to a clinic, 102 outpatients rated the severity of their presenting complaint, of 12 possible body problems including 6 nonspecific symptoms, of a set of adjustment difficulties, and answered the Welsh A and the Beck Depression inventories. Then, an internist 'blind' to the foregoing answers performed a routine history and physical exam, afterward rating the patient for degree of organic and of psychosomatic involvement. Significant correlations were found between clinician judgments of psychosomatic involvement and patients' self-reported complaints on all assessment measures (smallest r = 0.25, P less than 0.01). Substantial intercorrelations were found among the assessment measures, especially between Welsh A (Anxiety) and Beck Depression scores (r = 0.73).
Rosenthal
T L
TL
Department of Psychiatry, University of Tennessee, Memphis 38105.
Miller
S T
ST
Rosenthal
R H
RH
Shadish
W R
WR
Fogleman
B S
BS
Dismuke
S E
SE
D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D006801:Humans; D007388:Internal Medicine; D010808:Physical Examination; D011602:Psychophysiologic Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology; D012307:Risk Factors; D012803:Sick Role; D012931:Social Environment; D013001:Somatoform Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology