A two-year follow-up study of patients with somatoform disorders

Thirty inpatients with multiple somatoform symptoms admitted to a psychosomatic hospital were diagnosed using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R and questionnaires. Two years later, a reexamination by interview and a follow-up questionnaire took place. The authors found high comorbidity rates not only for affective disorders (lifetime 86%), but also for anxiety disorders (lifetime 43%). Comorbidity is of high prognostic relevance: whereas patients with only somatoform disorders at first assessment may remit until second assessment, in those patients with comorbidity with other psychiatric disorders, some somatoform symptoms still remain. The rate of misdiagnosed organic disorders is estimated at lower than 10%.