ИСТИНА

Introduction. The assumption that somatic symptoms can express psychological conflict is the basis of psychosomatic medicine, but the relationship between somatic and mental complaints in healthy people is not well-investigated. Objectives. There are two alternative hypotheses compared in the study: according to the "general distress factor" hypothesis one can expect positive correlation between somatic and mental complaints. Alternatively, if somatic symptoms “mask” or express mental ill-being correlation should be zero or negative one. Methods. Data on 1443 healthy adults from Russian MMPI-2 validation project were used (Butcher et al., 2001, Rasskazova et al., 2013). Content scales reflecting mental and somatic complaints were factorized revealing “general distress” factor (explained 61% of variance with factor loadings .63-.91). Then each scale was regressed on general factor to differentiate specific complaints. Results. Complaints on somatic symptoms correlates positively to complaints on mental symptoms (r=.33-.62). Their relationship with personality characteristics is largely a non-specific manifestation of the general psychological distress (r=.32-.69 versus r<.34 for all clinical scales except for Hs and Mf). Hypochondriacal and hysterical traits are associated with a variety of specific somatic complaints, depressive traits – with a common concern for the health, schizoid traits - with gastrointestinal complaints (r=.24-.48). Conclusions. Data are in line with "general distress factor" hypothesis. A number of specific physical and mental complaints observed in different personality profiles should be taken into account in diagnostics and treatment. Research supported by the grant of President of the Russian Federation for the state support for young Russian scientists, project MK2193.2017.6.