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8.3: Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders - Comorbidity

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    161389

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    Learning Objectives
    • Describe the comorbidity of somatic disorders.

    Given that half of psychiatric patients also have an additional medical disorder, 35% have an undiagnosed medical condition, and approximately 20% reported medical problems caused their mental condition, it should not come as a surprise that somatic disorders, in general, have high comorbidity with other psychological disorders (Felker, Yazel, & Short, 1996). More specifically, anxiety and depressive disorders are among the most commonly co-diagnosed disorders for somatic disorders. While there is not a lot of information regarding specific comorbidities among somatic symptom and related disorders, there is some evidence to suggest that those with illness anxiety disorder are at risk of developing OCD and personality disorders. Similarly, personality disorders are more common in individuals with functional neurological symptom disorder than the general public. Somatic symptom disorder is also comorbid with PTSD and OCD. (APA, 2022). No comorbidity information is given for factitious disorder.

    There is also high comorbidity between somatic disorders and other physical disorders classified as central sensitivity syndromes (CSSs), due to their common central sensitization symptoms, yet medically unexplained symptoms (McGeary, Harzell, McGeary, & Gatchel, 2016). Disorders included in this group are fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, and chronic fatigue syndrome. Comorbidity rates are estimated at 60% for these functional syndromes and somatic pain disorder (Egloff et al., 2014).

    Key Takeaways

    You should have learned the following in this section:

    • Anxiety and depression have a high comorbidity with somatic symptom and related disorders.
    • Functional neurological symptom disorder and illness anxiety disorder frequently occur with personality disorders.
    • PTSD and OCD are comorbid with somatic symptom disorder.
    • Central sensitivity syndrome also has high comorbidity with somatic disorders.
    Review Questions
    1. In general, what other disorders often occur with somatic disorders?
    2. Which disorder do we not know anything about?

    This page titled 8.3: Somatic Symptom and Related Disorders - Comorbidity is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Alexis Bridley and Lee W. Daffin Jr. via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.