Types of dizziness and its relationship with psychological symptoms in patients with chronic dizziness

Abstract

Dizziness could be categorized as one of the most common medical complaints of patients referred to the neurology clinics. The aim of this study was to evaluate the type of dizziness and its relationship with psychological disorders in patients with chronic complaints. 179 patients with a range of 18 to 65 years were studied. Patients were asked to complete the revised questionnaire form that contained 90 questions related to the signs based on severity scale vertigo tool. Subsequently to detect organic or non-organic vertigo, the patients were divided into two groups. Patients were asked to complete the given questionnaire form. For psychiatric disorders screening questions of international standard for testing SCL-90-R were used. Vertigo severity scale was used for the evaluation of dizziness severity. To compare quantitative variables between the two groups independent t-Test was used and p value of ≤0.05 was considered as significant. Of the total population 70.9% were females. 74% of patients have had dizziness due to organic causes and 26% have had dizziness due to non-organic causes. Dimension scores related to somatic complaints, obsessive-compulsive, depression, anxiety, paranoid ideation and global severity index in individuals with non-organic vertigo was significantly higher than other groups. There was a significant direct relationship between the overall score related to intensity of dizziness and all of the questionnaire dimensions'. There was significant correlation between the extent of physical complaints and the fear for morbid (p<0.001). The score of extent related to dizziness/balance in patient with vertigo due to organic causes and score of extent related to autonomic/anxiety in patient with vertigo due to non-organic causes was significantly higher than other groups.

Keywords

• Dizziness
• psychological symptoms
• somatoform disorders