RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Patients’ Characteristics and General Practitioners’ Management of Patients with Symptom Diagnoses
JF The Journal of the American Board of Family
                Medicine
JO J Am Board Fam Med
FD American Board of Family Medicine
SP 477
OP 492
DO 10.3122/jabfm.2022.220335R1
VO 36
IS 3
A1 Chaabouni, Asma
A1 Houwen, Juul
A1 Walraven, Iris
A1 van Boven, Kees
A1 Peters, Hans
A1 Schers, Henk
A1 olde Hartman, Tim
YR 2023
UL http://www.jabfm.org/content/36/3/477.abstract
AB Introduction: Symptom diagnoses are diagnoses used in primary care when the relevant diagnostic criteria of a disease are not fulfilled. Although symptom diagnoses often get resolved spontaneously without a clearly defined illness nor treatment, up to 38% of these symptoms persist more than 1 year. It is largely unknown how often symptom diagnoses occur, which symptoms persist, and how general practitioners (GPs) manage them.Aim: Explore morbidity rates, characteristics and management of patients with nonpersistent (≤1 year) and persistent (>1 year) symptom diagnoses.Methods: A retrospective cohort study was performed in a Dutch practice-based research network including 28,590 registered patients. We selected symptom diagnosis episodes with at least 1 contact in 2018. We performed descriptive statistics, Student’s T and χ2 tests to summarize and compare patients’ characteristics and GP management strategies in the nonpersistent and persistent groups.Results: The incidence rate of symptom diagnoses was 767 episodes per 1000 patient-years. The prevalence rate was 485 patients per 1000 patient-years. Out of the patients who had a contact with their GPs, 58% had at least 1 symptom diagnosis, from which 16% were persistent (>1 year). In the persistent group, we found significantly more females (64% vs 57%), older patients (mean: 49 vs 36 years of age), patients with more comorbidities (71% vs 49%), psychological (17% vs 12%) and social (8% vs 5%) problems. Prescriptions (62% vs 23%) and referral (62.7% vs 30.6%) rates were significantly higher in persistent symptom episodes.Conclusion: Symptom diagnoses are highly prevalent (58%) of which a considerable part (16%) persists more than a year.