Correlation between somatic symptoms and social support in patients with depressive disorder / 中华全科医师杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective@#To investigate the prevalence of somatization symptoms and its correlation with social support in patients with depressive disorder.@*Methods@#Two hundred and fourteen hospitalized patients with depressive disorder were recruited. Patients were evaluated with Somatic Symptom Inventory (SSI), Perceived Social Support from Family Scale (PSS-Fa), Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS) and the general questionnaire.@*Results@#The average SSI scores of depressive patients was 49.63±15.53, with 26.2% (56/214) of the patients having moderate to severe level of somatic symptoms. The most common moderate to severe somatic symptoms in depressive patients were "feeling fatigued (61.3%, 131/214), weak (49.5%, 106/214), not feeling well (47.7%, 102/214), feeling faint or dizzy (48.6%, 104/214), or constipation (29.9%, 64/214)" . The average SSRS scores of patients was low (33.24±7.16). The SSI scores and its non-painful dimension (39.05±12.14) were significantly negatively correlated with family support (11.03±3.45) (r=-0.150, P=0.03; r=-0.153, P=0.02) .The SSI scores, and its somatization dimension scores (49.63±15.53) and painful dimension scores (10.58±4.18) were negatively correlated with the total scores of social support (33.24±7.16) (r=-0.164, P=0.02; r=-0.183, P=0.01; r=-0.136, P<0.05) and subjective support (19.14±4.81) (r=-0.167, P=0.02; r=-0.163, P=0.02; r=-0.177, P=0.01) . The SSI scores and its non-painful dimension of patients were negatively correlated with support utilization (r=-0.179, P=0.01; r=-0.194, P=0.01) .@*Conclusion@#Somatic symptoms are prevalent and severe in patients with depressive disorder. The somatic symptoms of depressive patients was closely correlated with decreased social support, especially low subjective support and support utilization.