An investigation of ‘functional’ somatic symptoms among patients attending hospital medical clinics in Pakistan—I. Characteristics of ‘non-organic’ patients

Six hundred medical clinic attenders at the Mayo Hospital, Lahore, Pakistan, were screened using the Bradford Somatic Inventory (BSI) in Urdu. The physicians' clinical diagnosis was recorded. The characteristics of mood-disordered, functional and no-diagnosis groups were compared with patients receiving organic diagnoses. Of the non-organic patients, only the mood-disordered group reported significantly more BSI symptoms than the organic group. The functional group did not have especially high scores. All groups reported a greater mean number of BSI symptoms than a student comparison group. Among the non-organic patients, there was no relationship between the number of BSI symptoms reported and sex, age, education or occupational group.