title: Health Attitude Survey. A scale for assessing somatizing patients.
abstract: The authors designed an instrument, the Health Attitude Survey, to assess somatization, and administered it to over 1,000 patients attending a general medicine clinic. Within this population, a series of somatizing patients and control patients were identified for purposes of developing and testing the instrument. The 27-item scale was rapidly administered and acceptable to the patients. Based on comparisons with other measures of somatization, the instrument appeared to be a valid measure of the attitudes and perceptions of somatizing patients, and it distinguished these patients from the control subjects. The measure showed acceptable predictive value and may prove useful in clinical settings, where rapid screening is desired.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of Iowa College of Medicine, Iowa City 52242-1000, USA.
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Noyes
authors.forename: D R
authors.initials: DR
authors.lastname: Langbehn
authors.forename: R L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Happel
authors.forename: L R
authors.initials: LR
authors.lastname: Sieren
authors.forename: B A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Muller
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001294:Attitude to Health; D005194:Family Practice; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening; D008875:Middle Aged; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012803:Sick Role; D013001:Somatoform Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology