Thank you for your comments and considerations. Our routine data analysis aimed to investigate in what way and to what extent patients with functional disorders might receive excess medical care in the outpatient setting compared with the standard population, and whether coordination by the primary care physician can have a protective effect (1). Our analysis shows notable differences in uptake behaviors regarding potentially harmful medical interventions in patients with functional disorders—over the very long time period of 15 years (1), and also, that primary care coordination reduces these effects. As far as the Charlson score is concerned, we wanted to control in our regression model for the most important comorbidities. The question of which extent of interventions is optimal in order to achieve the best possible mental and somatic long term result can, however, not be explained by analyzing routine data. We cannot comment either on the need for diagnostic tests as this is not reflected in epidemiological data. To this end, intervention studies would be required, for example on the implementation of the guidelines somatization disorder (2) in the outpatient setting.
The authors of all contributions declare that no conflict of interest exists.
References
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