Covariation of physical and mental symptoms across illnesses: Results of afactor analytic study

Objective: Chronic illnesses are associated with reports of symptoms, probl ems, and dysfunction along multiple dimensions. To determine if the dimensi onality is disease-specific and whether physical and emotional symptoms are concomitant and inseparable aspects of the illness experience, we present a factor analysis of symptom and problem reports from five different chroni c conditions. Method: People with five different conditions participated in this study: multiple sclerosis (MS) (n = 263), non-insulin-dependent diabe tes mellitus (n = 420), nonhead nonneck injury trauma (n = 852), and a grou p of terminal patients comprised of acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AI DS) (n = 99) and cancer (n = 74) patients. Participants were asked to compl ete the Quality of Well-Being Scale (QWB) and symptom items from the QWB we re factor analyzed. Results: Both within each condition and across conditio ns, two factors accounted for the majority of the explained variance and co uld be described as an Observable Limitations factor and a Subjective Sympt oms factor Conclusions: Our factor analyses suggest that physical and emoti onal symptoms covary and are common to different types of illness.