Comorbid personality disorders: A negative predictor for therapy outcome of somatoform disorders?

Comorbid personality disorders are commonly regarded as negative predictor for the therapy outcome of other psychiatric disorders. In consequence we analyzed, whether patients with somatoform disorders and comorbid personality :disorders show higher levels of symptomatology or smaller therapy effects than such without additional axis-II-diagnosis. 119 psychosomatic inpatients' were assessed (I) several weeks before treatment (2) when admitted to treatment, and (3)at: the end:of treatment. :Somatoform, hypochondriacal, and depressive symptomatology, dysfunctional cognitions about body and health, and other clinical characteristics were measured. Diagnoses were based on DSM-IV. Our results suggest that there is no difference between somatoform patients with and without comorbid personality disorders with respect to levels of symptomatology and therapy outcome; also, when differentiated by personality clusters no difference is found between somatoform patient groups. However, substantial treatment effects are found for somatoform patients with and without additional personality disorders.