Somatization disorder and Briquet's syndrome. An assessment of their diagnostic concordance

Somatization disorder (SD) as defined by DSM-III is a modification of criteria previously established to define Briquet's disorder (BD). We examined whether the less stringent SD criteria identify the same patient population as the more stringent BD criteria. All psychiatric female outpatients who reported having multiple unexplained physical problems prior to the age of 30 years were included in the study. Eighty-five (10.7%) of 794 patients fulfilled these screening criteria. Of the 85 patients, 41 had both SD and BD. Thirty-six patients did not have either disorder. The results indicate that the DSM-III criteria for SD are equally effective in identifying patients with BD but considerably less time-consuming and cumbersome to apply.