ABSTRACT
Symptoms are common. During the course of a week, the average adult experiences one or two symptoms. The commonest of these are musculoskeletal problems, headaches and viral upper respiratory tract symptoms. Indeed, it is rare for people not to experience symptoms. In a study by Wadsworth et al. (1971), 95 per cent of a randomly selected sample of 2153 London adults experienced symptoms in a 14-day period. Figure 7.1 shows the proportion of the general population who suffer from a selection of common problems in a year. As you can see, the majority
of the population experience such problems each year. Fortunately, not all of these are brought to general practice. When an individual feels unwell, they may
choose to:
■■ ignore the symptoms; ■■ ‘self-care’, i.e. to cope with the symptoms themselves or to seek help from friends or relatives (the lay referral system); self-care may take the form of no action, home remedies (e.g. honey and lemon for a cough) or ‘over-thecounter’ remedies (e.g. cough linctus);
■■ consult a traditional healthcare professional such as a GP or practice nurse;
Only a small proportion of symptoms experienced by the general population are presented to a healthcare practitioner. This chapter considers the factors that influence the decision to consult and the types of conditions seen in general practice. A framework for aiding learning about medical conditions is presented.
