ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Rheumatology
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1631450
Psychosomatic profile in patients with systemic sclerosis: results from an observational study
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Florence, Florence, Italy
- 2Careggi University Hospital, Florence, Tuscany, Italy
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Objectives: The aim of the present study was testing whether the occurrence of psychosomatic syndromes in patients with systemic sclerosis (SSc) may influence psychopathological distress and well-being. Methods: Two hundred and seventy-six SSc outpatients were consecutively enrolled. Mental disorders were assessed via the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (MINI); psychosomatics syndromes were assessed via the Semi-Structured Interview for Diagnostic Criteria for Psychosomatic Research-Revised (DCPR-R-SSI). Psychological distress and well-being were assessed via the Mental Pain Questionnaire (MPQ), the Symptom Questionnaire (SQ), the Psychological Well-Being (PWB) Scales, the 5-item World Health Organization Well-Being Index (WHO-5), the Euthymia Scale (ES), and the Pictorial Representation of Illness and Self Measure (PRISM). Latent Class Analysis (LCA) on the 14 items of the DCPR-R-SSI was performed. The LCA solution yielded 2 distinct latent patient groups having distinct clinical profiles: LC1, which was composed by 255 patients (92.4%), and LC2, which was composed by 21 patients (7.6%).Results: DCPR-R Allostatic overload, demoralization, irritable mood, type A behaviour, alexithymia mostly discriminated two distinct latent groups of patients; the probabilities of observing these items were higher in patients belonging to LC2 group. Depression was found associated with belonging to LC2 as well as higher scores of MPQ, SQ depression, anxiety, anger-hostility and somatization (p<0.05), and lower scores of PWB environmental mastery, positive relationships with others, purposes in life and self-acceptance, WHO-5, ES, PRISM feeling at peace (p<0.05).Conclusion: Psychosomatic syndromes may contribute defining different clusters in patients with SSc, thus different and specific clinical profiles which need being considered in the assessment of such patients and when tailored interventions are proposed.
Keywords: psychological distress, Well-being, resilience, systemic sclerosis, DCPR
Received: 19 May 2025; Accepted: 17 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Romanazzo, Sera, Cappelli, Nacci, Guiducci and Cosci. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Fiammetta Cosci, University of Florence, Florence, Italy
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