Electrodermal characteristics in psychosomatic patient groups.

Specific autonomic reaction patterns in different psychosomatic patient groups have been observed by several authors. In our study 50 male hypertensive patients and 47 male duodenal ulcer patients both in the early mild reversible stage of disease were compared with 65 male control persons to determine distinguishing features of electrodermal activity in response to a sequence of verbal, acoustic and colour stimuli. The two patient groups show opposite characteristics in respect to the initial skin resistance level, response amplitude and non-specific responses. Slower recovery can be seen only in an emotionally disturbing situation in the duodenal ulcer group. On the contrary, in orienting situations the control persons tend to show slower electrodermal recovery. According to the results of factor analysis, the components of electrodermal activity belong to 3 different factors, underlining the relative independence of these parameters. The first factor contains the electrodermal amplitude values. The temporal characteristics of electrodermal responses belong to two different factors, the first being in connection with the orienting situation and the second with the emotionally disturbing situation. The longer recovery in orienting situations is associated positively with facilitating achievement anxiety and negatively with debilitating achievement anxiety. The anxiety and neurosis scores belong to the third factor in connection with the prolonged electrodermal responses in emotionally disturbing situations. Anxiety and depression scores are higher in both patient groups, in accordance with the results of earlier studies. The parameters of electrodermal responses were analyzed as a function of psychological characteristics.