Mediterranean migrants with acute psychiatric problems show a predominance of dramatic somatization in their symptom patterns, when compared with Belgian patients with similar psychiatric problems and admitted after identical recruiting and referral procedures. D.S.M. III diagnoses of the Mediterranean patients, however, reveal neither a correspondingly high incidence of somatoform disorders nor histrionic personalities. Adult and adolescent Mediterranean migrants appear to convey psychological problems through contrasting forms of somatization. Adolescents somatize mainly through self-inflicted symptoms, whereas adults express somatization in a more 'natural' way - insubjective bodily sensations, psychophysiological symptoms or psychosomatic syndromes. The main reason for acute psychiatric admission among Belgian adolescents is outward aggressive behaviour. In Mediterranean adolescents in Belgium it is a combination of somatization and aggression in self-inflicted physical symptoms. © 1989 Kluwer Academic Publishers.

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psychological aspect Europe human ethnology philosophy Holistic Health attitude Cross-Cultural Comparison male female cultural factor Belgium Article adult migration emergency health service Transients and Migrants Somatoform Disorders attitude to health somatoform disorder Middle Age Emergency Services, Psychiatric