Prevalence, Comorbidity and Severity of Psychosomatic Disorders in Outpatients with Turkish Migration Background

In this study the prevalence and comorbidity of mental disorders were examined for the first time with the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV (SCID-I) in a consecutive sample of Turkish speaking patients (n=51). The symptom severity of the depressiveness was measured with the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), of the somatoform complaints with the Screening for Somatoform Symptoms (SOMS) and of the posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with the Essen Trauma Inventory (ETI). The most common current diagnoses were the somatization disorder (41.2%; n=21), a single episode of major depression (37.3%; n=19) and the PTSD (31.4%; n=16). In 80.4% (n=41) of the patients at least one comorbid mental disorder was documented. In comparison with German reference values the Turkish patients showed a significant higher severity of the depressive and posttraumatic, however not of the somatoform symptomatology.