Assessment of Somatic, Distress, Anxiety and Depression Symptoms in Patients during COVID-19 Pandemic: A Pilot Study with Non-Hierarchical Cluster Analysis

Abstract

The aim of the article is to present results of pilot exploratory study on four groups of symptoms: depressive, anxiety, somatic and distress in group of 36 volunteer patients. There were no any hypotheses because of exploratory character of this research. Three k-means cluster analyses were performed: catastrophic thinking through pain experiences, somatization through pain experiences, and somatization through depressive symptoms intensity. For assessment of chosen symptoms five questionnaires were used: diagnostic survey (sociodemographic data, main sympthoms, COVID-19 infection), Four- Dimmensional Symptom Questionnaire (4DSQ), Catastrophic Cognitions Questionnaire - Modified (CCQ-M), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and Numerical Rating Scale (NRS). Most of the studied patient’s declarated affective symptoms, which seems to be differentially distributed in individual groups. They potentially could be divided into somatizing, non-somatizing and intermediate. Somatization scale from 4DSQ is moderate correlated with depressive symptoms (BDI), however, this is not indicative of any causality. Self-rating catastrophic thinking can be further studied as potential predictor for pain catastrophizing. Finally, cluster analysis is effective procedure for grouping patients due to selected parameters.