Incongruous consultation behaviour: results from a UK-wide population survey

BMC Primary Care

Table 1 Low impact consultations and high impact non-consultations in the previous two weeks by symptom

Level of symptom seriousness *	Symptom	n	Low impact consultations †		High impact non-consultations ††
			n	%	n	%
1	Feeling tired/run down	887	12	1.4	201	22.7
	Difficulty sleeping	607	12	2.0	155	25.5
	Sore throat	411	17	4.1	39	9.5
	Cold or flu symptoms	372	9	2.4	52	14.0
	Diarrhoea	266	9	3.4	37	13.9
	Loss of appetite	117	6	5.1	16	13.7
2	Back pain	653	15	2.3	144	22.1
	Nervousness/anxiety	405	10	2.5	88	21.7
	Cough	372	12	3.2	48	12.9
	Nausea/feeling sick	259	6	2.3	36	13.9
	Constipation	203	4	2.0	11	5.4
	Vomiting	95	2	2.1	24	25.3
3	Headaches	845	5	0.6	143	16.9
	Joint pain	678	30	4.4	141	20.8
	Indigestion/heartburn	392	13	3.3	41	10.5
	Feeling depressed	353	12	3.4	100	28.3
	Stomach/abdominal pain	337	20	5.9	66	19.6
	Dizziness	194	9	4.6	21	10.8
	Wheezy chest	158	14	8.9	16	10.1
	Fainting	14	2	14.3	4	28.6
4	Shortness of breath	176	15	8.5	23	13.1
	Blood in stool	52	9	17.3	1	1.9
	Unintentional weight loss	37	3	8.1	5	13.5
5	Chest pain	108	8	7.4	12	11.1
	Coughing up blood	4	0	0	1	25.0
All symptoms combined		7995	254	3.2	1384	17.3

* Level of symptom seriousness perceived by a sample of GPs, where level 1 is least serious and includes symptoms usually indicative of trivial/self-limiting illness and level 5 is most serious and includes symptoms that could be indicative of a serious condition or illness
† Consulted GP for symptoms self-rated as low severity (1-3 on a standard 5-point severity scale) andcausing no or little interference on daily life (1-3 on a standard 5-point interference scale)
†† Did not consult GP for symptoms self-rated as high severity (4 or 5 on a standard 5 point severity scale) and/orcausing considerable interference on daily life (4 or 5 on a standard 5-point interference scale)

ISSN: 2731-4553