Personality factors related to the prevalence of somatic symptoms and medical complaints in a healthy student population

Abstract

Previous research in somatization has identified strong positive relationships between this variable, and both neuroticism, and depression. Many studies, however, are limited by a cross-sectional approach, correlational analyses, and/or the restriction to clinical (psychiatric or medical) populations. The present investigation prospectively compared the relationships between neuroticism, depression, and somatic symptoms in a healthy student sample. As predicted, neuroticism and depression were significantly and positively related to symptom reporting. The results of a multiple regression analysis indicated that depression contributed significantly to the variance in symptom-reporting even after controlling for the effects of neuroticism. This finding suggests the importance of mood state in the experience of somatic symptoms. However, this influence is not independent of the trait neuroticism. The results of this study also indicated that females reported significantly more symptoms than males, and gender-specific relationships are discussed.