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[Symptom validation in patients with migration background in psychosomatic medicine]
J Göbber1, F Petermann, M Piegza
1Zentrum für Klinische Psychologie und Rehabilitation, Universität Bremen. goebber@psi-i.com
Objectives:
The aim of this study is to investigate differences in the occurrence of symptom over-reporting in insurants with and without migration background as well as to determine factors that predict the occurrence of symptom over-reporting.
Methods:
A survey-based screening of validating complaints including Structured Inventory of Malingered Symptomatology (SIMS), L-scale (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory - MMPI-2), Health-49 and Predictive validity of a brief scale measuring the subjective prognosis of gainful employment (SPE-scale) was carried out with 457 German insurants and 138 insurants with migration background previous to their inpatient rehabilitation treatment.
Results:
Symptom over-reporting measured by the SIMS could be observed in 33% of the German insurants and 50% of the insurants with migration background. Highest predictive power relative to symptom over-reporting was achieved by Health-49-score followed by social class and sex.
Conclusions:
Percentage of symptom over-reporting is higher in insurants with migration background than in German insurants, but taking into account more factors, differences in German and Non-German insurants can be largely explained by differences in social class and gender distribution. Studies applying multi-method symptom validation are required to clarify the causes of high prevalence of sympom over-reporting in German and Non-German insurants.
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