Yousif Ali Yaseen
University of Duhok, Iraq
Title: Somatoform disorders in the outpatient psychiatric setting: an overview
Biography
Biography: Yousif Ali Yaseen
Abstract
Aim: This study aimed at assessing the prevalence and risk factors of somatoform disorders (SD) and their types among patients attending a major psychiatric clinic in Duhok Governorate, Iraq. Our secondary aim was to assess the common presenting symptoms of conversion disorders (CD).
Materials & Methods: 637 subjects were randomly selected from the outpatient psychiatric clinic at the Azadi Teaching Hospital in Duhok City, Iraq. SCID-I/P Version 2.0 was applied to diagnose patients with SDs.
Results: In our sample the prevalence of SD was 24%. CD comprised the vast majority of SD of 75.8%, followed by somatization disorders at 7.8% and undifferentiated SD at 5.2%. SD was most common (60.1%) in adolescents and young adults (ages 15-25 y.o.); (p<0.05), and female gender comprised most of the SD in our sample (75.8%; p<0.001). Although, more than two-third of the cases were from lower educational levels (illiterate and primary educational level) (67.3%), more than fifty percent were married (52.3%), the majority were housewives (39.2%) and more than half of the cases were from urban areas (52.3%), but no significant association was found between SD and educational level, marital status, occupation and residence (p-values were 0.218, 0.659, 0.072 and 0.090 respectively). Regarding the symptomatic presentation of CD, the vast majority of the cases presented with seizure which comprised (81%), followed by motor symptoms which comprised (17.2%), and sensory symptoms which constituted (1.7%) only.
Conclusion: SD was highly prevalent among patients attending a major outpatient psychiatric clinic in Duhok province, Iraq, and CD was the most common presenting form of SD. Younger age and female gender comprised the majority of cases. Interestingly, the most common presenting symptom of CD in our sample was pseudo-seizures.