Clustering somatic symptoms based on psychological risk factors

Objective: Somatic symptoms consist of a wide range of symptoms and until yet clustering them has been very challenging for researchers and therapists. The present study aims to explore underlying psychological factors of various functional somatic symptoms and determine if there are any similarities or differences in these factors that could help classify these symptoms as one syndrome or discrete ones. Method: This study adopted an association rule mining method based on data mining. ۶۴۳ participants were recruited using a convenience sampling technique. Data were collected using the checklist of somatic symptoms (Lacourt et al., ۲۰۱۳), Attachment Questionnaire (Hazan & Shaver, ۲۰۱۷), Defense Style Questionnaire (Andrews et al., ۱۹۹۳), and Levels of Emotional Awareness Scale (Lane, ۲۰۰۶). Results: Cognitive, gastrointestinal, and fatigue symptoms are related more to immature defense mechanisms. Musculoskeletal, respiratory, and cardiac symptoms are associated with neurotic defenses. Fatigue symptoms are associated with ambivalent attachment and musculoskeletal symptoms are related more to avoidant attachment. Indeed, it could be said that there are two clusters of somatic symptoms, one of which is attachment and the other is defense mechanisms. This supports the splitters’ view about somatic syndromes. Conclusions: These findings show various types of somatic symptoms have qualitatively different risk factors. Our findings imply that psychotherapists should consider the kind of syndromes a patient has and their underlying psychological predispositions to manage the problem better.

Keywords:

clusters , functional somatic symptoms , Defense Mechanisms , Attachment style , level of emotional awareness