title: Assessing emotional distress at the internist's office.
abstract: 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).
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Tennessee, Memphis 38105.
authors.forename: T L
authors.initials: TL
authors.lastname: Rosenthal
authors.forename: S T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.forename: R H
authors.initials: RH
authors.lastname: Rosenthal
authors.forename: W R
authors.initials: WR
authors.lastname: Shadish
authors.forename: B S
authors.initials: BS
authors.lastname: Fogleman
authors.forename: S E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Dismuke
mesh_terms: 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