SOMATIC COMPLAINTS IN THE GERMAN POPULATION

The Freiburg Complaint List (Freiburger Beschwerdenliste FBL-R) is a s elf-report questionnaire which consists of 80 somatic complaints. A su rvey was conducted in 1993 and a sample of N = 2070, representative fo r the German adult population of 16 years and above, was obtained. Fac tor analysis, cluster analysis and item analysis were employed to deve lop nine scales: General Condition, Tiredness, Cardiovascular, Gastroi ntestinal, Head-Throat, Tenseness, Emotional Reactivity, Pain, Sensory and Total Score. Regression analyses revealed substantial effects of gender, age group, and, to a lesser extent, social class on FBL-R scor es. Furthermore, highly significant correlations were found between FB L-R scores and indicators of illness, health concern, and utilization of health services. The standardization provides normative data (stani ne norms) that account for gender and age groups. This representative survey provides essential data, i.e. base rates of somatic complaints in the general population and subsamples. These base rates are relevan t to the future development of criteria for diagnosis of somatization disorder.