Biomedical subjects

Rolf Leibbrand

Publications and source records attributed to Rolf Leibbrand.

3 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2005

Differentiating hypochondriasis from panic disorder.

Hypochondriasis and panic disorder are both characterized by prevalent health anxieties and illness beliefs. Therefore, the question as to whether they represent distinct nosological entities has been raised. This study examines how clinical characteristics can be used to differentiate both disorders, taking the possibility of mixed symptomatologies (comorbidity) into account. We compared 46 patients with hypochondriasis, 45 with panic disorder, and 21 with comorbid hypochondriasis plus panic disorder. While panic patients had more comorbidity with agoraphobia, hypochondriasis was more closely associated with somatization. Patients with panic disorder were less pathological than hypochondriacal patients on all subscales of the Whiteley Index (WI) and the Illness Attitude Scales (IAS) except for illness behavior. These differences were independent of somatization. Patients with hypochondriasis plus panic had higher levels of anxiety, more somatization, more general psychopathology and a trend towards increased health care utilization. Clinicians were able to distinguish between patient groups based upon the tendency of hypochondriacal patients to demand unnecessary medical treatments. These results confirm that hypochondriasis and panic disorder are distinguishable clinical conditions, characterized by generally more psychopathology and distress in hypochondriasis.

Agoraphobia↗

PubMed2002

Assessment of functional gastrointestinal disorders using the Gastro-Questionnaire.

The purpose was to investigate the reliability and factorial structure of the Gastro-Questionnaire for the screening and psychometric measurement of functional gastrointestinal disorders (FGDs). The questionnaire contains 27 gastrointestinal symptom items drawn from the Rome-II criteria, which are rated by frequency and severity, as well as some items to exclude organic diseases. The questionnaire was administered to 259 normal participants and to 69 participants of the annual German meeting of patients with irritable bowel syndrome. Reliability was good (Cronbach's alpha for frequency and severity items: alpha = .86 and alpha = .87). Factor analysis yielded a six-factor solution explaining 60.7% of the variance. Diagnostic frequencies ranged from 32.8% to 100% for FGDs in general, from 1.3% to 76.8% for irritable bowel syndrome, and from 7.0% to 100% for functional dyspepsia, depending on samples and symptom definitions. The Gastro-Questionnaire is a very economic, reliable, and content-valid instrument for the assessment of FGDs.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Predictors of course and outcome in hypochondriasis after cognitive-behavioral treatment.

BACKGROUND: Predictors of treatment outcome were evaluated in a clinical sample suffering from hypochondriasis. METHODS: The sample consisted of 96 patients with hypochondriacal disorder according to DSM-IV or high syndrome scores on the Illness Attitude Scales (IAS) or Whiteley Index (WI). After intense inpatient cognitive-behavioral treatment (CBT), 60% of the patients were classified as responders because of substantial improvements or recovery from hypochondriacal symptomatology. RESULTS: Non-responders were characterized by a higher degree of pre-treatment hypochondriasis, more somatization symptoms and general psychopathology (SCL-90R), more dysfunctional cognitions related to bodily functioning, higher levels of psychosocial impairments, and more utilization of the health care system as indicated by the number of hospital days and costs for inpatient treatments and medication. No predictive value was found for sociodemographic variables, comorbidity with other mental disorders and chronicity. Multiple linear regression showed that pre-treatment variables significantly predicted IAS scores at post-treatment (R(2) = 0.59), changes during treatment (0.10), IAS scores at follow-up two years later (0.41) and changes between baseline and follow-up (0.25). CONCLUSIONS: The results demonstrate the relevance of various psychopathological variables and health care utilization as important indicators for outcome and further course of clinical hypochondriasis.

Adult↗