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Reducing the costs of chronic somatisation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 June 2014

Christopher Williams  and
Allan House
Christopher Williams
Affiliation:
St James's University Hospital, Beckett Street, Leeds LS9 7TF, England
Allan House
Affiliation:
Department of Liaison Psychiatry, Leeds General Infirmary, Great George Street, Leeds LS1 3EX, England
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Abstract

We report the case of a 48 year old woman who presents with a 25 year history of somatisation disorder. She has ten volumes of notes from four hospitals in one city which together weigh almost 10kg. She has been under the care of ten hospital specialities, had eleven operations, with 77 admissions and a total of 856 days in hospital over a period of twenty-five years. No physical diagnoses can satisfactorily explain her presentations which have been accurately costed to a total of over £250,000 as a conservative estimate.

Somatisation disorder is a chronic illness with financial, medical and personal costs. We report in detail recurrent dangers and pitfalls which arose during her hospital contact. By undertaking a case note review, contacting all the physicians involved and writing a “Key” summary letter outlining the contribution of psychological factors to her problems, her annual health care costs were reduced from a total of over £10,000 a year to a little over £2,000 after psychiatric intervention and the appointment of one physician to take overall charge of her case. Implications for service provision are discussed.

Keywords

SomatisationHypochondriasisCostsAbnormal illness behaviour
Type
Clinical and Brief Reports
Information
Irish Journal of Psychological Medicine , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , June 1994 , pp. 79 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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