IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/medema/v23y2003i3p226-231.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Unexplained Complaints in General Practice: Prevalence, Patients' Expectations, and Professionals' Test-Ordering Behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Trudy van der Weijden
  • Monique van Velsen
  • Geert-Jan Dinant
  • Cathelijne M. van Hasselt
  • Richard Grol

Abstract

Objective . To gain insight into general practitioners' (GPs) test-ordering behavior for patients presenting with unexplained complaints. An unexplained complaint's symptoms are not alarming, and there is no plausible medical or psychosocial explanation for it. The Dutch College of General Practitioners (DCGP) recommends a watchful, waiting attitude for test ordering for unexplained complaints. Methods . Observational, cross-sectional study of 567 doctor-patient consultations performed by 21 GPs. Results . On average, 13% of consultations involved complaints considered unexplained by GPs. Unexplained complaints were positively related to test ordering (adjusted odds ratio [OR] = 2.4, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.1-5.3), despite the DCGP's recommendation. Patients' expectations about testing influenced test ordering even more (adjusted OR = 4.1, 95% CI 2.2-7.6). Discussion . Unexplained complaints happen daily in general practice. Besides the DCGP's recommendation, factors such as GPs' desire to understand complaints and patients' expectations seem to have impacts. Guideline development and quality improvement projects should respect, next to Bayesian rules, GP- and patient-related determinants of test ordering.

Suggested Citation

  • Trudy van der Weijden & Monique van Velsen & Geert-Jan Dinant & Cathelijne M. van Hasselt & Richard Grol, 2003. "Unexplained Complaints in General Practice: Prevalence, Patients' Expectations, and Professionals' Test-Ordering Behavior," Medical Decision Making, , vol. 23(3), pages 226-231, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:medema:v:23:y:2003:i:3:p:226-231
    DOI: 10.1177/0272989X03023003004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0272989X03023003004
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0272989X03023003004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Julian Wangler & Michael Jansky, 2024. "Somatoform Disorders in Primary Care—An Exploratory Mixed-Methods Study on Experiences, Challenges and Coping Strategies of General Practitioners in the Federal Republic of Germany," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 21(7), pages 1-13, July.
    2. Ring, Adele & Dowrick, Christopher F. & Humphris, Gerry M. & Davies, John & Salmon, Peter, 2005. "The somatising effect of clinical consultation: What patients and doctors say and do not say when patients present medically unexplained physical symptoms," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(7), pages 1505-1515, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:medema:v:23:y:2003:i:3:p:226-231. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.