Alexithymia and Somatosensory Amplification Link Perceived Psychosocial Stress and Somatic Symptoms in Outpatients with Psychosomatic Illness

Psychosomatic patients often complain of a variety of somatic symptoms. We sought to clarify the role of clinical predictors of complaints of somatic symptoms.We enrolled 604 patients visiting a psychosomatic outpatient clinic. The outcome was the total number of somatic symptoms, and the candidate clinical predictors were perceived psychosocial stress, alexithymia, somatosensory amplification, adaptation, anxiety, and depression. All...