The future of somatoform disorders: Somatic symptom disorder, bodily distress disorder or functional syndromes?

摘要

Introduction : People suffering from medically unexplained physical symptoms represent the largest group of patients in psychosomatic and behavioural medicine, and therefore, their classification is of pivotal relevance. The psychiatric classification systems of the last decades used the concept of 'somatoform disorders' to identify this patient group. However, the classification and labelling of somatoform disorders has been a point of discussion since its introduction in 1980. Although subsequent revisions introduced only minor modifications, DSM-5 brings some substantial changes of this category, and also suggests relabelling somatoform disorders to 'somatic symptom disorder' (SSD).