The Classification of Multiple Somatoform Symptoms

This study evaluated the concordance among different approaches to diagnose patients with multiple somatoform symptoms. Inpatients (N = 108) of a center for behavioral medicine were diagnosed using a structured clinical interview. Somatization disorder according to DSM-IV and ICD-10 was as rare as somatization disorder according to DSM-III-R. The overlap between the criteria of DSM and ICD for somatization disorder was lower than that between DSM-III-R and DSM-IV. Somatoform autonomic dysfunction, a diagnostic category proposed by ICD-10, included fewer patients diagnosed with somatization disorder than the criteria of Escobar and colleagues for abridged somatization disorder (SSI-4/6: this Journal 177:140-146, 1989). Therefore, the Escobar criteria may be a common link between ICD-10 and DSM-IV. Although the original Escobar criteria were built upon the symptom list of DSM-III-R somatization disorder, SSI-3/5 is an empirically derived equivalent according to DSM-IV in our study (a minimum of 3 symptoms for men or 5 symptoms for women out of the list of 33 somatization symptoms according to DSM-IV).