“Somatic Worry” and Medical Illness in Depressed Inpatients

The relationship of “somatic worry” to age, actual medical illness, and depression severity was examined in 91 psychiatric inpatients with unipolar major depression. Multiple regression analysis was used to determine the independent contributions of demographic, psychopathologic, and medical illness variables to the measures of somatic worry. Increased age and higher Ham-D scores were significantly and independently associated with greater somatic concern in the sample as a whole, but medical illness was not. Therefore somatic worry in depressed inpatients cannot be conceptualized as a direct consequence of poor physical health; age and the depressed state itself play important, though poorly understood, roles.