Diagnosis
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by primary care physicians as well as by psychiatrists. In many cases the diagnosis is made in a general medical clinic. Children and adolescents with somatoform disorders are most likely to be diagnosed by pediatricians. Diagnosis of somatoform disorders requires a thorough physical workup to exclude medical and neurological conditions, or to assess their severity in patients with pain disorder. A detailed examination is especially necessary when conversion disorder is a possible diagnosis, because some neurological conditions--including multiple sclerosis and myasthenia gravis--have on occasion been misdiagnosed as conversion disorder. Some patients who receive a diagnosis of somatoform disorder ultimately go on to develop neurologic disorders.
In addition to ruling out medical causes for the patient's symptoms, a doctor who is evaluating a patient for a somatization disorder will consider the possibility of other psychiatric diagnoses or of overlapping psychiatric disorders. Somatoform disorders often coexist with personlity disorders because of the chicken-and-egg relationship between physical illness and certain types of character structure or personality traits. At one time, the influence of Freud's theory of hysteria led doctors to assume that the patient's hidden emotional needs "cause" the illness. But in many instances, the patient's personality may have changed over time due to the stresses of adjusting to a chronic disease. This gradual transformation is particularly likely in patients with pain disorder. Patients with somatization disorder often develop panic attacks or agoraphobia together with their physical symptoms. In addition to anxiety or personality disorders, the doctor will usually consider major depression as a possible diagnosis when evaluating a patient with symptoms of a somatoform disorder. Pain disorders may be associated with depression, and body dismorphic disorder may be associated with obsessive-compulsive disease.
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