Investigation of PsychometricProperties of Psychosomatic Complaints Scale among Individuals with Somatic Symptom Disorder

Given the prevalence of somatic symptoms disorder among Iranians, the aim of this research is to evaluate and verify the psychometric characteristics of Takata and Sakata psychosomatic complaints scale among psychosomatic patients.

In this study 360 people who referred to the psychosomatics department of Taleghani Hospital in Tehran in 2022, as well as the patients referred by the physicians, psychiatrists and psychologists of medical centers were selected through convenience sampling method. Internal consistency method (Cronbach's alpha) was used to determine the reliability of the questionnaire. Also, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were used to determine the factor structure. To ensure convergent validity, Goldberg general health scale (GHQ-28) was used and SPSS and Lisrel software were applied for analyzing data.

The results of the Cronbach's alpha indicated the appropriate internal consistency of the whole questionnaire and its components. Cronbach's alpha for the whole questionnaire was 0.957. In the exploratory factor analysis, a "hyper stimulation" factor was extracted. According to confirmatory factor analysis, the goodness of fit indicators of proposed model were confirmed (Chi-Square/df: 1.297, RMSEA: 0.029, SRMR: 0.031, CFI: 0.976, IFI: 0.976) and all paths were significant. Regarding the convergent validity, somatic symptoms component, anxiety, dysfunction in social action and function, and depression have a direct and significant relationship with psychosomatic problems.

The Persianversion of the takata and sakata psychosomatic complaints scale, is a reliable and valid tool for assessing of the severity of psychosomatic symptoms in Iranian psychosomatic patients.