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Chronic non-specific abdominal complaints in general practice: a prospective study on management, patient health status and course of complaints

BACKGROUND: While in general practice chronic non-specific abdominal complaints are common, there is insufficient data on the clinical course and the management of these complaints. Aim of this study was to present a primary care based profile of these chronic complaints including health care involv...

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Autores principales: van den Heuvel-Janssen, Henriëtte AM, Borghouts, Jeroen AJ, Muris, Jean WM, Koes, Bart W, Bouter, Lex M, Knottnerus, J André
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2006
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1420306/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16512926
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2296-7-12
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author van den Heuvel-Janssen, Henriëtte AM
Borghouts, Jeroen AJ
Muris, Jean WM
Koes, Bart W
Bouter, Lex M
Knottnerus, J André
author_facet van den Heuvel-Janssen, Henriëtte AM
Borghouts, Jeroen AJ
Muris, Jean WM
Koes, Bart W
Bouter, Lex M
Knottnerus, J André
author_sort van den Heuvel-Janssen, Henriëtte AM
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: While in general practice chronic non-specific abdominal complaints are common, there is insufficient data on the clinical course and the management of these complaints. Aim of this study was to present a primary care based profile of these chronic complaints including health care involvement, health status and clinical course. METHODS: Thirty general practitioners (GPs) and patients from their practices participated in a prospective follow-up study. All patients and GPs were asked to complete questionnaires at baseline and at 6, 12 and 18 months of follow-up. The GPs provided information on diagnostic and therapeutic management and on referral concerning 619 patients with chronic non-specific abdominal complaints, while 291 patients provided information about health status and clinical course of the complaints. RESULTS: When asked after 18 months of follow-up, 51,7% of the patients reported an equal or worsened severity of complaints. General health perception was impaired and patients had high scores on SCL-anxiety and SCL-depression scales. Diagnostic tests other than physical examination and laboratory tests were not frequently used. Medication was the most frequent type of treatment. The persistence of chronic non-specific abdominal complaints was quite stable. CONCLUSION: Once non-specific chronic abdominal complaints have become labelled as chronic by the attending physician, little improvement can be expected. The impact on patients' physiological and psychological well-being is large. GPs use a variety of diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. Research into the evidence base of currently applied management strategies is recommended.
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spelling pubmed-14203062006-03-30 Chronic non-specific abdominal complaints in general practice: a prospective study on management, patient health status and course of complaints van den Heuvel-Janssen, Henriëtte AM Borghouts, Jeroen AJ Muris, Jean WM Koes, Bart W Bouter, Lex M Knottnerus, J André BMC Fam Pract Research Article BACKGROUND: While in general practice chronic non-specific abdominal complaints are common, there is insufficient data on the clinical course and the management of these complaints. Aim of this study was to present a primary care based profile of these chronic complaints including health care involvement, health status and clinical course. METHODS: Thirty general practitioners (GPs) and patients from their practices participated in a prospective follow-up study. All patients and GPs were asked to complete questionnaires at baseline and at 6, 12 and 18 months of follow-up. The GPs provided information on diagnostic and therapeutic management and on referral concerning 619 patients with chronic non-specific abdominal complaints, while 291 patients provided information about health status and clinical course of the complaints. RESULTS: When asked after 18 months of follow-up, 51,7% of the patients reported an equal or worsened severity of complaints. General health perception was impaired and patients had high scores on SCL-anxiety and SCL-depression scales. Diagnostic tests other than physical examination and laboratory tests were not frequently used. Medication was the most frequent type of treatment. The persistence of chronic non-specific abdominal complaints was quite stable. CONCLUSION: Once non-specific chronic abdominal complaints have become labelled as chronic by the attending physician, little improvement can be expected. The impact on patients' physiological and psychological well-being is large. GPs use a variety of diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. Research into the evidence base of currently applied management strategies is recommended. BioMed Central 2006-03-03 /pmc/articles/PMC1420306/ /pubmed/16512926 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2296-7-12 Text en Copyright © 2006 Henriëtte AM et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
van den Heuvel-Janssen, Henriëtte AM
Borghouts, Jeroen AJ
Muris, Jean WM
Koes, Bart W
Bouter, Lex M
Knottnerus, J André
Chronic non-specific abdominal complaints in general practice: a prospective study on management, patient health status and course of complaints
title Chronic non-specific abdominal complaints in general practice: a prospective study on management, patient health status and course of complaints
title_full Chronic non-specific abdominal complaints in general practice: a prospective study on management, patient health status and course of complaints
title_fullStr Chronic non-specific abdominal complaints in general practice: a prospective study on management, patient health status and course of complaints
title_full_unstemmed Chronic non-specific abdominal complaints in general practice: a prospective study on management, patient health status and course of complaints
title_short Chronic non-specific abdominal complaints in general practice: a prospective study on management, patient health status and course of complaints
title_sort chronic non-specific abdominal complaints in general practice: a prospective study on management, patient health status and course of complaints
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1420306/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16512926
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2296-7-12
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