Intelligence is negatively associated with the number of functional somatic symptoms, 2009, Kingma et al

[rvallee]

I would also add the question of "When did the researchers in the field of psychosomatic medicine stop beating their wife?"

If we're going to pass moral judgments as valid inquiries, might as well go with a classic.

 

[Woolie]

Not sure I understand the thinking but the assumed mechanism could be that low intelligence makes it harder for people who are in distress to resolve that distress, and unresolved emotional conflicts, as they believe, can be converted into bodily symptoms. The patients are of course too stupid to see how their emotions are causing bodily symptoms, and so they see a doctor and demand a diagnosis which is impossible because there is no organic basis to the symptoms. That could be their logic.

But that just goes back to the original point, and that is, if you want to measure "Inability to resolve distress" or "difficulty dealing with conflicting emotions" or some such thing, then for heaven's sake use a test that at least attempts to measure that. Don't use IQ as some sort of weird loose proxy.

 

[dave30th]

The study has nothing too do with people have psychosomatic illness. It is purely about how often people report symptoms and how often doctors explain them.

well, how often patients report that doctors have explained them. we really don't know what doctors really said. this seems a very inexact way to me to determine whether someone really has an actual diagnosis or not.

The study seems kind of meaningless. I mean, if people are impaired and having some cognitive issues at baseline they're likely to do worse on intelligence tests--I thinks someone mentioned that. Also people are less "intelligent" might easily have access to less intelligent doctors or demand less of their doctors and not makes sure they got explanations. pushy entitled people with good education might have better access to better health care and demand second opinions and specialist care and more diagnostic tests.