Distinct biopsychosocial profiles emerge among nonpatients

Objectives: The cross-sectional study comprised 30- to 55-year-old permanent employees (N= 1784) of the Finnish Broadcasting Company (YLE). Methods: The participants (N= 1339, response rate 75%) completed standardised questionnaires covering demographic items, physical health, work performance, stress symptoms, pain and musculoskeletal symptoms, and overall biopsychosocial health. Results: Physical symptoms (present often or continually) were reported by 15%, psychosomatic by 19% and psychosocial by 14%, The intercorrelations between 73 biopsychosocial variables revealed nine factors explaining 54.5% of variance for intrapersonal profiles and four factors explaining 59.2% of variance for interpersonal profiles. The Cronbach alphas for reliability ranged from .76 to .83, Three distinct biopsychosocial cluster profiles were found: Cluster 1 (n = 290, 27%) loaded positively with the somatic and psychosocial variables, Cluster 2 (n=558, 51%) loaded negatively with the various biopsychosocial symptoms, and Cluster 3 (n=235, 22%) loaded positively with anxiety. Conclusion: Discriminant function analysis confirmed that this cluster solution correctly classified 95.2% of the subjects in a nonpatient multiprofessional population, which supports the biopyschosocial approach also in work life issues. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.