Feasibility of Diagnostic Criteria for Psychosomatic Research in India: A Pilot Qualitative Evaluation

Do Diagnostic Criteria for Psychosomatic Research Explain Diagnosis of Medically Unexplained Somatic Symptoms?

“…This suggests the utility of DCPR to ascribe a diagnosis to MUS. Thus, parts of the DCPR (health anxiety, disease phobia, somatization and alexithymia) seem to be clinically useful in the diagnosis of MUS, replicating findings of an earlier study from the same setting [7]. Despite the clinical diagnosis of somatoform disorders being the commonest, the rates of DCPR persistent somatization were low, similar to another recent study [9].…”

“…The Diagnostic Criteria for Psychosomatic Research (DCPR) [1] were developed to assess psychosocial issues concomitant with medical illness and to detect conditions, which could not be diagnosed by other diagnostic systems. The DCPR have been used in a variety of clinical populations [2], including patients with functional gastrointestinal disorders [3,4], heart transplantation recipients [5] and cancer [6], and have also been used in Indian an setting [7]. The DCPR consist of 12 syndromes: alexithymia, type A behavior, irritable mood, demoralization, disease phobia, thanatophobia (phobia of death), health anxiety, illness denial, functional somatic symptoms secondary to a psychiatric disorder, persistent somatization, conversion symptoms and anniversary reaction.…”

The Clinical Utility of the Diagnostic Criteria for Psychosomatic Research: A Review of Studies

“…They have been used in several medical and psychiatric settings, also in different cultures such as Lithuania [14] , Japan [15] , and India [16] . This diagnostic system enables clinicians to identify psychological problems in medical patients to a much greater extent than the DSM classification and also provides clinicians with information on specific psychological factors affecting a prevalent number of patients suffering from a given group of medical illnesses [17] .…”

Occurrence of Diagnostic Criteria for Psychosomatic Research Syndromes in Polish Patients with Chronic Illness

“…The DCPR system has been used both in Western [5] and Eastern countries [6,7,8]. This is the first report on the occurrence of DCPR syndromes in Polish chronic medical patients.…”