Psychometric evaluation of symptom perception related measures

Psychological theories on symptom perception have put forward determinants of physical symptom reporting. These determinants concern either attentional strategies, attributional processes or personality factors. In this paper, we bring together five major determinants of symptom reporting (external information, selective attention to body, attributional style, negative affectivity and somatization) in a cognitive-psychological model. Sex differences on these determinants may contribute to explaining the usually found female excess of physical symptoms. Five psychological self-report measures, assessing these symptom perception related concepts, were translated into Dutch or newly developed. Their psychometric characteristics were investigated in both a student and a patient sample. All scales were found to be sufficiently reliable. Correlations with validity measures and between the scales themselves support the inter relatedness of psychological distress, somatic distress and general neuroticism. Significant sex differences were observed on four of the five scales, though these differences were inconsistent across samples. The sex effects remained significant when gender role orientation was taken into account. Lastly, sex differences in physical symptoms were independent from the trait versus state character of the symptom measure, and were found for a general disposition to report symptoms (somatization) as well as for daily registered symptoms in health diaries.