신체 증상을 주소로 응급실에 내원한 정신질환자들의 진단 유형 및 특성

Abstract

Purpose : The demographics, clinical characteristics and psychiatric diagnosis were assessed for the patients with somatic complaints to identify the characteristics of somatic manifestations and the specific diagnostic problems.

Materials and Methods : Ninety-five patients with somatic complaints were recruited in the emergency room of Chungbuk National University Hospital from MAR, 1995 to FEB, 1997. We reviewed their demographic variables, features of stress, clinical characteristics and psychopathology, and made rediagnosis according to DSM-IV and ICD-10 criteria.

Results : Female patients were more frequent than male in sex, and the second to forth decade were predominant in age. The majority of the subjects have low educational level and middle economic state. Housewives are predominant. The main stressor was familial problem and symptom onset was rapidly progressive. The subjects mainly complained cardiovascular and neurological symptoms. Anxiety, depression and dissociation were common comorbid emotional problems. However the various diagnoses were made and non-specific diagnoses such as ’adjustment disorder, unspecified’ and ’other somatoform disorder’ were predominent.

Conclusion : There is no specified diagnostic category that can explain these common symptom feaures. It may resulted from the application of the western diagnostic criteria in the area with different sociocultural background. So, further investigation and new diagnostic suggestion will be needed for these syndromes