Treatment of Patients With Longstanding Unexplained Health Complaints
- Conditions
- Somatization Disorder
- Registration Number
- NCT00132197
- Lead Sponsor
- University of Aarhus
- Brief Summary
The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of specialized treatment (including cognitive therapy, social counselling and a recommendation letter to the patients' primary care physician) on the functional level, emotional problems, and use of health care in patients with chronic medically unexplained symptoms.
- Detailed Description
Medically unexplained or functional somatic symptoms are complaints, which are not attributable to any verifiable, conventionally defined disease, or which cannot adequately be supported by clinical or para-clinical findings.
Functional somatic symptoms are common in the population and in all clinical settings, both in primary and secondary care. The disorders range from mild, transitory cases, which are difficult to delimit in relation to normality, to severe chronic cases with multiple symptoms from different organ systems.
Chronic multiple functional somatic symptoms often cause frustration for both GPs and patients due to lack of availability of specialized treatment offers. Patients may have a high use of health care, and their social and functional level is low. In Denmark, patients with chronic multiple functional somatic symptoms account for at least 10% of the early retirement pensions each year.
Diverse interventions have been effective in the management and treatment of patients with functional disorders. Care recommendation letters for the GPs have both helped reduce the patients' use of health care and improved their level of physical functioning. Randomized controlled trials (RCT) have shown that cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT) has effect on specific patient groups with functional disorders. Through a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy, social counselling and recommendation letters, it is possible to offer patients with chronic functional somatic symptoms a presumably effective and cost-effective treatment.
Recruitment & Eligibility
- Status
- COMPLETED
- Sex
- All
- Target Recruitment
- 120
- Multiple somatic symptoms from several organ systems, without adequate medical explanation.
- Moderate to severe influence on daily life.
- The disorder's functional component can easily be separated from a possible well-defined chronic somatic illness.
- No lifetime-diagnosis of psychoses, bipolar affective disorder or depression with psychotic symptoms (International Classification of Diseases [ICD-10]: F20-29, F30-31, F32.3, F33.3)
- The condition must have been present for at least 2 years.
- Patients of Scandinavian origin who understand, read, write and speak Danish.
- No informed consent.
- An acute psychiatric disorder that demands other treatment, or if the patient is suicidal.
- Abuse of narcotics or alcohol and (non-prescribed) medicine.
- Pregnancy.
- Current industrial injury case or other action for damages.
Study & Design
- Study Type
- INTERVENTIONAL
- Study Design
- PARALLEL
- Primary Outcome Measures
Name Time Method Physical health measured with The Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36) (aggregate score of the scales physical functioning, bodily pain and vitality) Measured at baseline and months 4 (end of treatment), 10 and 16
- Secondary Outcome Measures
Name Time Method Psychosocial effect measures: Social level of functioning, emotional disorders, coping strategies measured with relevant sub-scales from the SF-36, WHO-DAS II, CSQ, Symptom Checklist SCL, Whiteley-7 Measured at baseline and months 4 (end of treatment), 10 and 16 Use of health care measured by information from the National Patient Register, the Psychiatric Central Register, the National Health Service Register and The Danish Medicines Agency Measured for a period of one year prior to referral (baseline) and a period of one year after treatment
Trial Locations
- Locations (1)
Per Fink
🇩🇰Aarhus C, Denmark