ArticleBMJ open2020
The BDS checklist as measure of illness severity: a cross-sectional cohort study in the Danish general population, primary care and specialised setting.
Article in BMJ open, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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11 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Understanding General Somatic Symptom Burden: Insights from a Systematic Review of Factor Analyses Pertaining to the Patient Health Questionnaire 15 (PHQ-15) and Somatic Symptom Scale 8 (SSS-8).International journal of behavioral medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Psychological and behavioral correlates of health anxiety and other anxiety phenomena in adolescence-A cross-sectional study in the Copenhagen Child Cohort 2000.JCPP advances · 2026Article
- Prevalence of Bodily Distress Syndrome and Prediction of Patient Outcomes: Cohort Study of 3762 Individuals With Persistent Pain.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2026Article
- Assessment of psychosocial aspects in adults in post-COVID-19 condition: the EURONET-SOMA recommendations on core outcome domains for clinical and research use.BMC medicine · 2025Review
- Exploring the course of functional somatic symptoms (FSS) from pre- to late adolescence and associated internalizing psychopathology - an observational cohort-study.BMC psychiatry · 2024Observational
- Review
- Hair cortisol and self-perceived stress in adolescents with multi-system functional somatic disorders.BMC psychiatry · 2024Article
- Clinical Impact of Systematic Assessment and Psychoeducation in Specialized Treatment of Adolescents with Severe Functional Somatic Disorders: Results from the AHEAD Study.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- A multicenter study of bodily distress syndrome in Chinese outpatient hospital care: prevalence and associations with psychosocial variables.BMC psychiatry · 2022Article
- Development and Validation of the Weighted Index for Childhood Adverse Conditions (WICAC).International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Group-based Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (AHEAD) for adolescents with multiple functional somatic syndromes: A randomised trial.JCPP advances · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
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Abstract
objectiveThe bodily distress syndrome (BDS) checklist has proven to be useful in the diagnostic categorisation and as screening tool for functional somatic disorders (FSD). This study aims to investigate whether the BDS checklist total sum score (0-100) can be used as a measure of physical symptom burden and FSD illness severity.
designCross-sectional.
settingDanish general population, primary care and specialised clinical setting.
participantsA general population cohort (n=9656), a primary care cohort (n=2480) and a cohort of patients with multiorgan BDS from specialised clinical setting (n=492). OUTCOME MEASURES: All data were self-reported. Physical symptoms were measured with the 25-item BDS checklist. Overall self-perceived health was measured with one item from the 36-item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36). Physical functioning was measured with an aggregate score of four items from the SF-36/SF-12 scales 'physical functioning', 'bodily pain' and 'vitality'. Emotional distress was measured with the mental distress subscale (SCL-8) from the Danish version of the Hopkins Symptom Checklist-90. Illness worry was measured with the six-item Whiteley Index.
resultsFor all cohorts, bifactor models established that despite some multidimensionality the total sum score of the BDS checklist adequately reflected physical symptom burden and illness severity. The BDS checklist had acceptable convergent validity with measures of overall health (r=0.25-0.58), physical functioning (r=0.22-0.58), emotional distress (r=0.47-0.62) and illness worry (r=0.36-0.55). Acceptability was good with a low number of missing responses to items (<3%). Internal consistency was high (α ≥0.879). BDS score means varied and reflected symptom burden across cohorts (13.03-46.15). We provide normative data for the Danish general population.
conclusionsThe BDS checklist total sum score can be used as a measure of symptom burden and FSD illness severity across settings. These findings establish the usefulness of the BDS checklist in clinics and in research, both as a diagnostic screening tool and as an instrument to assess illness severity.
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