Analysis of Psychosomatic Disorders According to Age and Sex in a Rural Area: A Population-Based Study

• Published in: Journal of personalized medicine Vol. 12; no. 10; p. 1730
• Main Authors: Torrubia-Pérez, Elisabet, Reverté-Villarroya, Silvia, Fernández-Sáez, José, Martorell-Poveda, Maria-Antonia
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 18.10.2022; MDPI
• Subjects: age; Age groups; Anxiety; biopsychosocial; Diagnosis; Health surveys; Mental depression; Mental disorders; Mental health; Population; Population studies; Population-based studies; Precision medicine; prevalence; Primary care; psychosomatic disorders; Risk factors; Rural areas; Sex; Sociodemographics; Statistical analysis; Variables; Womens health; Spain
• ISSN: 2075-4426; 2075-4426
• DOI: 10.3390/jpm12101730

Psychosomatic disorders can develop unevenly depending on certain health determinants; therefore, the aim of this study was to analyze the prevalence of psychosomatic disorders and the differences by age and sex in a rural area. We conducted an observational descriptive retrospective population study to determine the prevalence of 201 diagnoses of psychosomatic nature grouped into 25 diagnostic categories by sex and age groups. A total of 33,680 participants with a diagnosis of psychosomatic disorder were identified (64.6% women, 35.4% men). We found statistically significant differences based on sex in 13 of the 25 diagnostic categories previously defined. When we analyzed these categories by age, we found that women showed a higher probability, between 1.23 and 10.85 times, of suffering from most of these health issues. We also observed that the older the age group, the most often they had a diagnosis. Notably, more women seem to suffer from psychosomatic disorders when compared to men in the same situation. In most of these disorders, being of the female sex was a risk factor, and the older the participants, the greater the probability of developing a disorder.