Health, self-regulation of bodily signals and intelligence: review and hypothesis.

Childhood IQ and adult morbidity and mortality are known to be linked even beyond socioeconomic variables. Yet, their interrelations are insufficiently understood. It has been suggested that bodily sensations play a fundamental role in health-related self-regulation and that intelligence can influence the information processing of these somatic signals.

Psychosomatic medicine in primary care: influence of training.

Background: General practitioners (GPs) are often confronted with patients presenting somatic symptoms presumed to be decisively modulated by psychosocial factors.

Objectives: We aimed to explore GPs' reported clinical routine in dealing with these patients according to the GPs' level of training in psychosomatic medicine.

Methods: A structured postal questionnaire survey was conducted among all Austrian GPs with a standardized training background in psychosomatic medicine (three levels of training; duration between one and six years) as well as in a random national sample of Austrian GPs without such training, resulting in four study subgroups.

[Austrian Network for Psychosomatic Medicine: background, development and participation].

Objectives: Physicians as well as the general public need easy access to information on regional psychosomatic treatment options as can be provided by a network website. We therefore set out to explore the readiness of the Austrian psychosomatic community to participate in a network for Psychosomatic Medicine and actively contribute to its website.

Methods: All Austrian psychosomatic societies and all psychosomatic in-patient facilities were addressed personally and/or by letter.

Depressive symptoms following herpes simplex encephalitis--an underestimated phenomenon?

Objective: In view of the herpes simplex virus' neurotropism for the limbic system and the temporal lobe, little is known about potential negative effects of this necrotizing encephalitis on affective functioning and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) after recovery. We therefore set out to explore an association between herpes simplex virus encephalitis (HSE) and both depressive symptoms and HRQoL.

Methods: A structured telephone interview was conducted in 26 subjects (F/M=10/16; age at follow-up, 49.

[Schizophrenia -- an existential disease].

This paper deals with familiar findings in the field of schizophrenic psychosis re-interpreted from a medical anthropological (V. Weizsäcker) as well as theoretical pathological (W. Dörr) view-point.