SUBJECTIVE BODY COMPLAINTS IN THE ELDERLY - STANDARDIZATION OF THE GIESSEN SUBJECTIVE COMPLAINTS LIST (GBB-24)

Psychosomatic and functional body complaints in the elderly became mor e significant in psychosomatic research and therapy during recent year s. On the other hand, there is a lack of epidemiological studies on th is topic. The present paper presents results of a study with a communi ty sample of 764 elderly older than 60 years. Body complaints were sel f-rated by the Giessener Beschwerdebogen (The Giessen Subjective Compl aints List) GBB (Brahler and Scheer, 1995). This study presents age-sp ecific and sex-specific norms for the GBB. Compared to representative samples of younger people (< 30 years of age, 30-60 years of age) we f ound a significantly higher amount of body complaints in the elderly ( exhaustion, stomach trouble, rheumatic pains, heart trouble, and the s um score of body complaints). Within the age group over 60 years, ther e is an increasing amount of body complaints with higher age. The amou nt of body complaints is higher for women than for men. Besides analyz ing age-specific and sex-specific body complaints, the correlation wit h personality characteristics and with life satisfaction and the influ ence of health-related beliefs were analyzed. There were greater body complaints in elderly with depressive mood and with low internal contr ol beliefs regarding health. The elderly that consider the psychologic al influence on health significant experience a greater amount of body complaints than the other.