Healthcare Practitioners’ Views on Healthcare-Related Factors Influencing Symptom Persistence and Improvement in Persistent Somatic Symptoms: A Qualitative Study of Four European Countries ...

The management of patients with persistent somatic symptoms (PSS) poses a significant challenge for practitioners with both medical and psychological backgrounds [1-2]. Besides the sometimes-negative attitude towards affected patients, the communication and consulting behavior of primary care practitioners, their biomedical disease models, their perceptions of patients' beliefs, wishes, and expectations, as well as their knowledge of PSS and a lack of confidence in treating affected patients have been identified as barriers for an early diagnosis in a systematic review [3]. This review further... Mehr ...