An investigation of ‘functional’ somatic symptoms among patients attending hospital medical clinics in Pakistan—II. Using somatic symptoms to identify patients with psychiatric disorders

Rating Scales validated for Sri Lankan populations

“…symptoms in the psychiatric case notes of patients with a clinical diagnosis of anxiety, depression, hysteria or hypochondriasis (5). From these, 21 items were selected that differentiated psychiatric from 'organic' patients.…”

The Somatization of Depression in Native Pakistani Women

“…Many patients att ending hospital m edi cal out pa tie nt clinics in Paki st an co mp lain of somatic sym pto ms for whi ch no physical ca use is found (8) . It is possible t hat many of th ese pati ents m ay have underlying depression or a nx ie ty.…”

“…We se lecte d th e LSI because it was ada pte d from th e Br adford Som a tic Inve ntory (BSI) which was spe cifica lly norm ed on Paki st ani pati ents, as well as Brit ish pati ents, a nd ha s been shown succe ssfully to assess 90% of somatic sym ptoms in th ese gr oups (3). This inv entory is a 21-item se lf-ra te d sca le adapte d fro m t he 46-it em BSI (3,8,9). It wa s originally based on th e au th or s' syste m a tic search of ca se not es for sympto ms in Pakistan and Great Britain, a nd was fu rt he r test ed agains t cas e not es of psych iatric patients from othe r parts of th e Indo-Pak subco n tin en t. The BSI was conceived bilingually in Urdu, th e native language of Paki stan, a nd in English.…”

Psychiatric Morbidity among Medical Out-Patients in Kuwait: Evaluation of a Somatic Inventory to Identify the Psychiatric from the Non-Psychiatric Patients

“…Its initial 46-item version covered more than 90% of the symptoms reported by the patients across five different centres, including North and South India, Nepal, Pakistan and Britain [8]. Later validation studies in Pakistan and Britain revealed that shorter versions, BSI-21 and BSI-14, were equally effective and easy to administer [19].…”

“…The total score (range 0-42) was derived by adding the score of each of the 21 items. An alternate scoring system, counting only those BSI symptoms which had been present for more than 15 days during the past month, used and successfully validated in the previous studies [19], was also computed.…”