Primary care consultations about medically unexplained symptoms: patient presentations and doctor responses that influence the probability of somatic intervention.
OBJECTIVE
In primary care, many consultations about physical symptoms that the doctor thinks are not explained by physical disease nevertheless lead to somatic interventions. Our objective was to test the predictions that somatic intervention becomes more likely a) when doctors provide simple reassurance rather than detailed symptom explanations and do not help patients discuss psychosocial problems and b) when patients try to engage doctors by extending their symptom presentation.


METHODS
Consultations of 420 patients presenting physical symptoms that the doctor considered unexplained by physical disease were audio-recorded, transcribed, and coded. Analysis modeled the probability of somatic intervention as a function of the quantity of specific types of speech by patients (symptomatic and psychosocial presentations) and doctors (normalization, physical explanations, psychosocial discussion).


RESULTS
Somatic intervention was associated with the duration of consultation. Controlling for duration, it was, as predicted, associated positively with symptom presentations and inversely with patients' and doctors' psychosocial talk. The relationship with doctors' psychosocial talk was accounted for by patients' psychosocial talk. Contrary to predictions, doctors' normalization was inversely associated with somatic intervention and physical explanations had no effect.


CONCLUSIONS
Somatic intervention did not result from the demands of patients. Instead, it became more likely as patients complained about their symptoms. Facilitating patients' psychosocial talk has the potential to divert consultations about medically unexplained symptoms from somatic interventions. To understand why such consultations often lead to somatic interventions, we must understand why patients progressively extend their symptom presentations and why doctors, in turn, apparently respond to this by providing somatic intervention.
Salmon
Peter
P
Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Liverpool, Whelan Building, Brownlow Hill, Liverpool, UK. psalmon@liv.ac.uk
Humphris
Gerry M
GM
Ring
Adele
A
Davies
John C
JC
Dowrick
Christopher F
CF
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005194:Family Practice; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'; D011602:Psychophysiologic Disorders / Q000628:therapy*; D012044:Regression Analysis; D006113:United Kingdom