Somatic symptoms of anxiety amongst children

Abstract

The article discusses ihe Scale of the somatic symptoms of anxiety. Psychometric characteristics abtained on a sample of 250 examinees (pupils of the fifth to eight grade) reveal that we are dealing with a reliable measuring instrument. According to the results girls generally show greater physiological sensitivity and in different situations (separation, social evaluation, examinations, etc) display more somatic symtoms than boys. The audior proposes the evaluation of the examined construct as a separate category of disorder amongst children and adolescents which would be equivalent to the category of Somatization amongst grown-ups in the DSM-IV classification.