تعصب حافظه برای اطلاعات مربوط به سلامت در اختلالات شبه جسمی

Cognitive processes are considered to be relevant to the etiology and maintenance of somatoform disorders (SFDs). The aim of this study was to assess explicit and implicit information-processing bias for disorder-congruent information in SFDs.

Somatoform disorders (SFDs), according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) and the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision (ICD-10), cover a heterogeneous range of conditions, all of them sharing the central feature of bodily symptoms that cannot be fully explained by any medical factor. The impact of SFDs on the health care system is tremendous, as SFDs are among the most prevalent psychiatric disorders and, moreover, are associated with severe impairment in important areas of functioning and with high health care utilization [1], [2], [3] and [4]. In current models of SFDs, information-processing aspects are considered to be relevant [5], [6], [7] and [8]. These include an abnormal amplifying perceptual style [5], restrictive assumptions about health and body functions [9], and an enduring tendency to misinterpret bodily sensations and other health-related information as evidence of serious physical illness [10]. The interaction of perceptual and interpretative biases of ambiguous body signals can result in a vicious circle of anxiety, physiological arousal, and intensification of symptoms (Fig. 1). Furthermore, organic causal beliefs and vulnerability attributions have been found to be associated with dysfunctional illness behavior [11], which in turn might contribute to the process of the syndrome becoming chronic.