A cognitive behavioural group treatment for somatic symptom disorder: a pilot study
Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Somatic symptom disorder (SSD) presents challenges to the healthcare system, including frequent medical visits, lack of symptom relief experienced by individuals with this condition, high associated medical costs, and patient dissatisfaction. This study examined the utility of a novel, low-barrier, brief cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) group intervention for individuals with SSD. METHODS: Participants were referred by their mental health providers or self-referral. Each participant underwent a telephone screen and in-person psychological and neuropsychological screen. Two cycles of the CBT-based group (n = 30), each consisting of six weekly two-hour sessions, were facilitated at a large outpatient mental healthcare facility in Ontario, Canada. The final sample consisted of 13 individuals of whom 11 completed the treatment. Clinical outcome measures were administered pre-, mid- and post-group, including the Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7, Perceived Stress Scale-4, Pain Self-Efficacy Questionnaire, Pain Disability Index, Revised Illness Perception Questionnaire, and sections of the Patient Health Questionnaire. Six healthcare utilization metrics were collected from electronic medical records at six months pre- and post-group. Paired samples t-tests were used to examine pre- to post-group differences in participants' somatic symptoms, psychological functioning, health, and degree of healthcare utilization. RESULTS: When comparing pre- and post- group, we observed reductions in the mean scores for somatic symptom severity, depressive symptomatology, anxiety, perceived stress, and perceived disability related to pain. The change in depressive symptomatology yielded a small effect size (d = 0.30). Further, we observed downward trends across participants' pre- to post-group healthcare utilization, with small effect sizes observed for hospital admission (d = 0.36), days admitted to hospital (d = 0.47), and inpatient consults (d = 0.42). Differences between pre- and post-group measures of somatic symptom severity, psychological functioning, health, or healthcare utilization did not reach significance. CONCLUSIONS: Current findings provide support for the potential effectiveness of an abbreviated CBT group for individuals with SSD in reducing psychiatric symptomatology. Further research is recommended, including randomized control trials, cost-benefit analyses, and comparisons between abbreviated versus longer-duration treatment programs for SSD. TRIAL REGISTRATION: Not applicable.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".