An investigation of psychosocial factors in patients with upper abdominal pain: a comparison with other groups of surgical outpatients.

The purpose of this study was to examine the personality patterns, levels of anxiety and the importance of life events in patients with upper abdominal pain and to compare these patients with other groups of patients attending a general surgical outpatient clinic. The relevance of age, sex and social class was also studied. The patient groups were compared on each of the psychological measures and no differences were found between the groups. In addition the data were subjected to principal component and discriminant analyses in order to determine whether the U.A.P. patients could be distinguished on the basis of a combination of indices. Both analyses failed to produce any distinguishing criteria for the U.A.P. patients. A number of other observations on these patients are also discussed but the overall results are more consistent with a non-specific model of stress and disease than with the idea of specific psychological factors being involved in the development of upper abdominal pain.