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Women's health: do common symptoms in women mirror general distress or specific disease entities?

Nordic School of Public Health, Göteborg and Department of Community Health Sciences, Malmö University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden

Per-Olof Östergren

Nordic School of Public Health, Göteborg and Department of Community Health Sciences, Malmö University Hospital, Malmö, Sweden

The purpose of this study was to determine aspects of validity of a short self-report inventory, based on physical and psychological symptoms that, according to other studies, are most prevalent in women. It was hypothesized that such symptoms form a single entity, which would be consistent with the view that they represent a proxy for general distress in women. Method: One hundred and one women were approached, all of whom filled in the ``common symptoms in the general population of women'' (CSGP) instrument and the multidimensional self-report inventory Symptom Check List 90 (SCL90) for external comparison. The results indicate that the CSGP scale has high internal consistency (alpha=0.80). The strongest correlations were found between the CSGP scale and the SCL90 subscales assessing ``somatization'', ``depression'' and ``anxiety''. In the factor analysis, the items on the CSGP scale were widely dispersed among the factors represented by the main SCL90 subscales, and therefore could not be considered to represent any particular subscale. Our conclusion is that the CSGP scale seems to assess a single entity. Other researchers suggest that such an entity represent a proxy for general distress in women. This will have implications for the interpretation of the common symptoms represented by the scale, which women report in clinical settings.

Key Words: women • health • symptoms • general distress.

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