Comprehensive, research-based interviewing guidelines in general practice settings.

Medical interviewing has evolved considerably during the last 35-50 years. Nowhere has progress been greater than with the articulation of the interview's endpoint, the biopsychosocial model (Engel, 1977b; 1980). Interviewers collect personal information and physical symptoms from the patient and, then, synthesize these data to produce a biopsychosocial description — the patient's story. We generally recognize the systems-based biopsychosocial model as the gold standard for understanding the patient from a scientific as well as humanistic vantage point (Simpson, 1963; von Bertalanffy^ 1968; Lorenz, 1971; Brody, 1973; Weiss, 1973; Bateson, 1979; Mayr, 1982). Extensive research supports this position.