title: Clinical assessment of pharyngitis in general practice.
abstract: The present study investigates the feasibility of the clinical differentiation between patients with beta-haemolytic streptococcal pharyngitis from those with pharyngitis caused by other agents, based on the patients' symptoms, symptom duration, and the clinical findings. Twenty-four general practitioners recruited 225 patients for the study. Fifty-six patients had positive and 169 patients negative group A beta-haemolytic streptococcal throat cultures. Twenty-two patients in the streptococcal group and 76 patients in the non-streptococcal group were initially correctly diagnosed based on an overall clinical assessment (sensitivity 0.39, specificity 0.55 and accuracy 0.51). This is as accurate as "flipping a coin". Similar figures were found with regard to the individual symptoms (accuracy 0.38-0.68) and clinical findings (accuracy 0.36-0.65). Taking the duration of symptoms into account and applying discriminant function analysis did not significantly improve these figures. In order to obtain a sufficiently accurate diagnosis in general practice, the use of the new rapid agglutination test for streptococcal identification is recommended.
authors.affiliation: Department of General Practice, University of Oslo, Norway.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Hjortdahl
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Laerum
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Mowinckel
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D006801:Humans; D007841:Latex Fixation Tests; D008875:Middle Aged; D010612:Pharyngitis / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology / Q000382:microbiology; D010614:Pharynx / Q000382:microbiology; D013290:Streptococcal Infections / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000382:microbiology; D013291:Streptococcus / Q000302:isolation & purification