Krankheitseinstellungen und Krankheitsverhalten bei Patienten einer umweltmedizinischen Ambulanz

Patients with health problems related to environmental factors often do not present evidence of an environmental aetiology. It has been postulated that their problems are at least partly due to disorders diagnosed by other clinical disciplines, mainly psychiatry. Especially illness attitudes and illness behaviour found in hypochondriacal and somatoform disorders seem to resemble those in patients with environmentally related illnesses. Fifty patients were consecutively submitted to extensive interdisciplinary examinations. There was no evidence for a relevant influence of harmful substances. In 12% no cause for the symptoms could be found. 76% suffered from mental disorders. In 64% the psychiatric diagnosis was regarded as responsible for the symptoms. 66% of them were neurotic, stress-related or somatoform disorders. Somatoform disorders were the most common (59%). A hypochondriacal disorder was only diagnosed in four cases, although 31-38% of the patients were rated hypochondriacal by the psychometric assessment. Significant differences between patients with or without psychiatric diagnoses were found on some of the scales of the psychometric questionnaires, especially those associated with disease conviction. Nevertheless there was no similarity to the profiles described for hypochondriacal and somatization disorders. Despite a few significant differences the separate analysis of patients with and without psychiatric diagnoses did not reveal the expected identification of distinct subpopulations. So environmentally related illnesses still prove to be highly complex. Simple explanations will not do justice to their complexity.

Grantor dc:publisher

Publikationsserver der RWTH Aachen University

Year dc:date

2001

Author dc:creator

• Fiori, Wolfgang

Contributors dc:contributor

• Ebel, Hermann

• info:eu-repo/classification/ddc/610
• Medizin

Statement dc:rights

• info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

Language dc:language

ger

Identifier

https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/search?p=id:%22RWTH-CONV-118691%22

OAI record oai:identifier

https://publications.rwth-aachen.de/oai2d?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_dc&identifier=oai%3Apublications.rwth-aachen.de%3A56602