SSS-8: Somatic Symptom Burden Norms from a Representative German Sample

2,515 survey responses from a representative German community sample collected in 2021 provide updated population norms for the Somatic Symptom Scale-8 (SSS-8). The dataset includes psychometric evaluation results and enables a direct comparison with a 2012 normative sample. It was authored by Sören Kliem and published on figshare.

Use Cases

• Establishing clinical reference norms based on the representative population sample.
• Validating psychometric properties of a self-report instrument based on the reported confirmatory factor analysis.
• Analyzing associations between somatic symptom burden and health care utilization based on the negative binomial regression results.
• Testing measurement invariance across demographic groups based on the gender and age invariance analyses.
• Comparing somatic symptom burden trends over time based on the cross-cohort comparison with the 2012 sample.

Strengths

• Data is from a representative German community sample of 2,515 individuals.
• High internal consistency reported (ω = .922).
• Includes a direct comparison with a 2012 normative sample of 2,484 individuals.
• Construct validity was evaluated against measures of depression, anxiety, well-being, and loneliness.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to a single-country sample.

Provenance

Source

figshare

Collection Method

Survey of a representative German community sample.

Time Range

2021

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-22 05:34:50; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Germany