Fig. 1

The change in SCL-90 mean sum score for the Stable and the Increase groups. In this figure, the y-axis represents the total sum score of the SCL-90 items; x-axis represents the baseline (T0) and 1 year (T1) assessments. The lines represent the change in the number of symptoms for the Stable group (solid light-gray line) and for the Increase group (dashed dark-gray line). p values correspond to the results of the tests of the differences of SCL-90 sum-scores between the Stable (n = 80) and the Increase (n = 77) groups at T0 and T1. The Stable and the Increase group did not differ significantly on the SCL-90 score (difference = 3.65, p = .45) at T0. At T1, the level of symptoms of the Increase group was significantly higher than of the Stable group (difference = 34.72, p < 0.001) which roughly corresponds to an increase of one severity category [34]