Psychiatric Aspects of Somatic Immunity: Differential Incidence of Physical Disease in the Histories of Psychiatric Patients

Abstract

The physical illness history, in terms of 38 bodily complaints and 72 somatic diseases, was assessed in 354 healthy adult controls and in 272 patients with a variety of psychiatric disorders. The physical illness experience of the psychiatric patients was significantly in excess of that of the controls, psychotics having a heavier loading of previous physical illness than neurotics or psychopaths. The influence of age and sex was insignificant in comparison with that of psychiatric diagnosis. The childhood illness experience in all groups did not differ significantly with respect to most zymotic diseases. A differential pattern of organ system reaction was found to be present for other disorders. The somatic illness history of neurotics included many examples of minor physical disability, that of depressives showing especially a loading with gastrointestinal disorders, and that of scnizophrenics a loading with locomotor and cardio-vascular diseases. The findings are discussed with reference to their reliability and validity, and their immunological implications considered from the psychiatric point of view.