Somatic complaints may predict a delay in compassion development

What is it about?

We investigated whether somatic complaints (headache, stomachache, chest pain, backache, fatigue, exhaustion, dizziness, heartburn, heartbeat, and tension without any diagnosed medical condition) in early adulthood predict the trajectory of compassion later in adulthood. The sample consisted of 471-1037 Finnish adults that were followed over 26 years after the measurement of somatic complaints. We found that, in adults without frequent somatic complaints, compassion steadily increased in adulthood. In adults with frequent somatic complaints, in turn, there was a significant delay in compassion development in adulthood. Further, we found that this association occurred independently of alexithymic features (i.e. challenges in identifying and analyzing one's emotions).

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Why is it important?

It is known that individuals with somatic complaints cause an economic strain for public health care system and are at elevated risk for prolonged sickness absences. Further, patients with somatic complaints are typically regarded as “difficult patients” by health care professionals and experience less understanding for their suffering from the health care professionals. Our findings arouse the question whether one complicating factor in interaction with somatizing patients might also be the patient's uncompassionate or hostile feelings or expectations toward the health care professionals. Finally, our results showed that not all of the adverse effects of somatic complaints may be explained by difficulties in analyzing or identifying one's emotions.