ABSTRACT
Symptoms have a long pedigree. Hippocrates recognised their key role in patient care and the term 'symptom' comes from the Greek symptoma which means 'anything that has befallen one'; the Greek verb is piptein 'to fall'. Urinary tract infections are another common problem in general practice and many people will base their prescribing decisions on the identification of abnormalities on dipstick or culture rather than the patient's symptoms. Patient-centred interviewing is about actively listening and clarifying the patient's story and symptom history as well as extracting additional items of clinical information during the course of a conversation. Primary care diagnostics must be oriented towards patient-centred outcomes. If the initial interview produces a common and shared understanding of the symptoms then it is likely that any therapeutic interventions will be considerably more effective. One of the greatest difficulties encountered in seeking to use symptoms as a diagnostic tool is the imprecise nature of symptom definitions by doctors.
