Distinct biopsychosocial profiles emerge among nonpatients

The cross-sectional study comprised 30- to 55-year-old permanent employees (N=1784) of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE).

The participants (N=1339, response rate 75%) completed standardised questionnaires covering demographic items, physical health, work performance, stress symptoms, pain and musculoskeletal symptoms, and overall biopsychosocial health.

Physical symptoms (present often or continually) were reported by 15%, psychosomatic by 19% and psychosocial by 14%. The intercorrelations between 73 biopsychosocial variables revealed nine factors explaining 54.5% of variance for intrapersonal profiles and four factors explaining 59.2% of variance for interpersonal profiles. The Cronbach alphas for reliability ranged from.76 to.83. Three distinct biopsychosocial cluster profiles were found: Cluster 1 (n=290, 27%) loaded positively with the somatic and psychosocial variables, Cluster 2 (n=558, 51%) loaded negatively with the various biopsychosocial symptoms, and Cluster 3 (n=235, 22%) loaded positively with anxiety.

Discriminant function analysis confirmed that this cluster solution correctly classified 95.2% of the subjects in a nonpatient multiprofessional population, which supports the biopsychosocial approach also in work life issues.