This study evaluated the concordance among different approaches to diagnose patients with multiple somatoform symptoms. Inpatients (N = 108) of a center for behavioral medicine were diagnosed using a structured clinical interview. Somatization disorder according to DSM-IV and ICD-10 was as rare as somatization disorder according to DSM-III-R. The overlap between the criteria of DSM and ICD for somatization disorder was lower than that between DSM-III-R and DSM-IV. Somatoform autonomic dysfunction, a diagnostic category proposed by ICD-10, included fewer patients diagnosed with somatization disorder than the criteria of Escobar and colleagues for abridged somatization disorder (SSI-4/6: this Journal 177:140-146, 1989). Therefore, the Escobar criteria may be a common link between ICD-10 and DSM-IV. Although the original Escobar criteria were built upon the symptom list of DSM-III-R somatization disorder, SSI-3/5 is an empirically derived equivalent according to DSM-IV in our study (a minimum of 3 symptoms for men or 5 symptoms for women out of the list of 33 somatization symptoms according to DSM-IV).

One hundred seventy four inpatients of a psychosomatic hospital were examined with the revised version of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale TAS-R, as well as further measures of emotionality, somatization, psychopathology and personality. A significant association was found between TAS alexithymia and the number of somatoform symptoms. This association, however, disappeared when it was corrected for the possible impact of depression. The factor 1 of the TAS (ability to describe feelings to others) correlated significantly with the use of negative emotional words. Thus TAS alexithymics do not use less, but more emotional words, especially words describing negative feelings.

Primary coronary stent implantation in VLBW infants with critical CoA is a feasible bridging therapy to surgery.

There is only limited evidence of the course of sleep quality and sleep disturbances during acute inpatient treatment and the prediction of/association with treatment outcome in mental disorders. Within this naturalistic study, 5,481 consecutively admitted inpatients completed the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI‐II) at admission and at discharge. Treatment included both individual and group psychotherapy (but no specific interventions for sleep disturbances) and pharmacotherapy based on current national treatment guidelines. Correlation analyses, analyses of variance and linear models were calculated to analyse the datasets. The PSQI improved significantly (p < 0.001) from admission (mean score 9.51 [±4.11]) to discharge (mean score 8.08 [±4.20]) in all diagnostic subgroups. Despite this improvement, 47% of the patients still showed elevated PSQI scores (>5) at discharge. Patients with post‐traumatic stress disorder showed the largest sleep disturbances at both time‐points; patients with obsessive‐compulsive disorder were the least impaired. An improvement of the PSQI was found to be significantly correlated (p < 0.001) to the change of BDI‐II values (without the sleep item) during treatment. The likelihood of achieving remission of depressive symptoms (BDI‐II total score <14) was significantly associated with less sleep disturbances at admission. The results suggest that almost half of inpatients with mental disorders treated successfully with state‐of‐the art specific psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy do not have remission of their sleep problems. Therefore, specific treatment programmes for insomnia should be evaluated and implemented in daily clinical routines.

One hundred seventy four inpatients of a psychosomatic hospital were examined with the revised version of the Toronto Alexithymia Scale TAS-R, as well as further measures of emotionality, somatization, psychopathology and personality. A significant association was found between TAS alexithymia and the number of somatoform symptoms. This association, however, disappeared when it was corrected for the possible impact of depression. The factor 1 of the TAS (ability to describe feelings to others) correlated significantly with the use of negative emotional words. Thus TAS alexithymics do not use less, but more emotional words, especially words describing negative feelings. The validity of factor 2 (externally oriented thinking) seems to be low. TAS alexithymia may measure specific aspects of depression or general distress.