The somatizing patient in general practice.

New 2016 MeSH Addressing Information Gap, Poverty, Violence and Danger of Medicine Set the Tone for Policy-Makers in Patient Care

Narratives of Somatizing and Non somatizing Patients in a Primary Care Setting.

Somatizing patients, who comprise approximately 20 percent of the primary care population, often present physicians with recurrent but confusing combinations of symptoms without organic explanations. Illness narratives presented during initial medical encounters with primary care physicians were examined qualitatively to determine if the narrative structure, chronological development of symptom...

Somatization in response to undiagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder in a family

BACKGROUND Somatization is a common problem in primary care and often presents puzzling problems for the family physician. A family or contextual approach is often useful in investigating and treating refractory symptoms. CASE PRESENTATION A 63 year-old patient presented to his family physician with recurrent episodes of syncope, weakness and various other somatic symptoms. Lengthy clinical i...

A randomized controlled trial of brief training in the assessment and treatment of somatization in primary care: effects on patient outcome.

OBJECTIVE Our aim was to evaluate the effect of an educational program designed to improve care for somatizing patients in primary care. METHOD Evaluation was performed during routine clinical care in a cluster randomized controlled trial. Patients were included consecutively, and those with a high score on rating scales for somatization were selected for follow-up (n=911). Follow-up was cond...

Patient Flow Analysis in General Hospitals: How Clinical Disciplines Affect Outpatient Wait Times

Background: Overcrowding is an important problem for outpatient services in healthcare facilities. Patient flow analysis (PFA) is a useful method for identifying inefficiencies in and facilitating patient flow. Objective: PFA was used to estimate patient wait time and determine how different clinical disciplines impact wait times in the studied hospital.<...