Journal of psychosomatic research
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Chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CPPS) is a debilitating pain condition with prevalence rates between 2.0% and 26.6%. Studies indicate that CPPS is often associated with psychosocial factors, but little is known about the presence of full-blown mental disorders in female and male patients with CPPS. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the frequencies of mental disorders in patients with CPPS. ⋯ Our results provide evidence for a clinically relevant psychosocial symptom burden in patients with CPPS, indicating the need for the examination of psychopathologies and multi-professional treatment for this patient group.
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To examine the influence of illness perceptions, pain catastrophizing and psychological distress on self-reported symptom severity and functional status in patients diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). ⋯ This study shows that psychological distress, pain catastrophizing and illness perceptions play an independent role in self-reported severity of CTS. Clinicians should take these psychosocial factors into account when they are consulted by patients with CTS.
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To investigate the combined impact of somatic and psychosocial factors on symptom severity and physical and mental quality of life (QoL) in male and female patients with chronic pelvic pain syndrome (CPPS). ⋯ Present results emphasize the importance of psychosocial factors, in particular of depression, in CPPS symptom severity and both physical and mental QoL and give support to an integrated treatment concept encompassing both psychological support and somatic aspects of the disease.
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We investigated if alexithymia, a personality construct with difficulties in emotional processing, is stable in the general population. ⋯ According to our large longitudinal study both the absolute and relative stability of alexithymia assessed with the TAS-20 are high in the adult general population.
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To test the hypothesis that elderly persons who feel ikigai (a sense of life worth living) have a lower risk of incident functional disability than those who do not. Recent studies have suggested that ikigai impacts on mortality. However, its impact upon disability is unknown. The aim of the present study was to investigate the association between ikigai and incident functional disability among elderly persons. ⋯ A stronger degree of ikigai is significantly associated with a lower risk of incident functional disability.