Table 4.
Rating instruments for somatoform disorder
| Scale | Comments | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | PHQ-15 | A 15-item questionnaire exploring 15 somatic symptoms. Each symptom is rated from 0 (refers to – not bothered at all) to 2 (refers to – bothered a lot). The cut-off points for low, medium and high symptom severity are 5, 10 and 15 respectively[4] |
| 2 | SSS-8 | An 8-item self-report scale. The symptoms are rated from 0 (not at all) to 4 (very much). The score ranges from 0 to 32. The severity of the symptoms is rated as “no to minimal:” 0–3; “low:” 4–7; “medium:” 8–11; “high:” 12–15; and “very high:” 16–32[5] |
| 3 | SASS | This scale consists of four subscales: 1. Pain-related symptoms; 2. Sensory somatic symptoms; 3. Non-specific somatic symptoms; 4. Biological function related symptoms. The symptom severity is rated on a four-point scale ranging from 0 to 3, where “0” refers to absent; “1” refers to mild; “2” refers to moderate and “3” refers to severe. The scale measures symptoms during the past 2 weeks[6] |
| 4 | SSI | A scale listing 11 symptoms used for screening. The presence of 5 or more symptoms suggest somatoform disorder[7] |
| 5 | BSI | This is a multi-ethnic inventory of somatic symptoms present with depressive and anxiety symptoms. It contains 46 items[8] |
| 6 | WI | It has 14 items used to characterize three dimensions, a) disease conviction, b) somatic preoccupation, and c) disease phobia[9] |
PHQ-15 – Patient health questionnaire 15; SSS-8 – Somatic Symptom Scale 8; SASS – Scale for the Assessment of Somatic Symptoms; SSI – Swartz Somatization Index; BSI – Bradford Somatic Inventory; WI – Whitley Index