investigation of mental health in patients with medically ‎unexplained physical symptoms‎

objective: medically unexplained symptoms are physical symptoms, which cannot be explained by organic ‎causes. this study aimed to investigate mental health in patients with medically unexplained ‎physical symptoms. ‎ method: one hundred outpatients who were admitted to the electro diagnosis clinic of imam khomeini ‎hospital, ahvaz/iran, participated in this study. data were collected using physical examination, ‎paraclinical examinations, and scl-90-r, and analyzed through multivariate analysis of variance ‎‎ (manova), chi-square test and fisher’s exact test. ‎ results: the findings revealed significant differences between clients with medically explained and ‎unexplained symptoms in obsessive compulsive and somatization (p<0.05). differences in ‎depression, anxiety, phobia, psychosis, aggression and paranoia were not significant (p>0.05).‎ conclusion : the present study suggested an association between some psychological problems and somatic ‎symptoms. therefore, screening for psychological impairments can improve clinical outcomes.