Subjective body complaints as an indicator of somatization in elderly patients

The authors examined the correlation of subjective body complaints (measured by the Giessen Subjective Complaints List) with sociodemographic data, objective health measures, measures of subjective well-being, and clinicians' ratings of somatization and psychological impairment in 251 cognitively unimpaired general hospital inpatients aged >/=60 years. The level of subjective body complaints correlated most highly with self-assessed life satisfaction and age-related changes and with the clinicians' rating of somatization. The results suggest that the level of subjective body complaints is determined by subjective well-being rather than by objective health measures, and thus subjective body complaints may be an indicator of somatization in elderly inpatients.