Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here for FREE ACCESS to this landmark database

CiteULike is a free service for managing and discovering scholarly references - click here to get started.

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Journal of Health Psychology
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in Web of Science
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Web of Science (1)
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Ringsberg, K. C.
Right arrow Articles by Krantz, G.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Ringsberg, K. C.
Right arrow Articles by Krantz, G.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Coping with Patients with Medically Unexplained Symptoms

Work-related Strategies of Physicians in Primary Health Care

Karin C. Ringsberg

Nordic School of Public Health, Göteborg, Sweden, karin{at}nhv.se

Gunilla Krantz

Centre for Health Equity Studies, CHESS, Stockholm University and Karolinska Institute, Sweden

General practitioners (GPs) often meet patients with medically unexplained symptoms (MUS). From a patient perspective, MUS is a well-acknowledged problem within the primary health care services today, but less is known about the GPs’ perceptions. This study aims to elucidate GPs’ perceptions of patients with MUS, focusing on stressing situations, emotional reactions and coping strategies. Twenty-seven physicians participated in focus-group discussions. In the analysis, where a phenomenographic approach was used, six situations were identified as being especially stressful in the encounter with these patients. The GPs described how they used both problem-focused and emotion-focused strategies, but with emotion-focused strategies slightly dominating, indicating that the GPs had difficulties in managing their own stress when working with patients with MUS.

Key Words: behavioural science • coping strategies • general practitioner • medically unexplained symptoms • phenomenography • primary health care

Journal of Health Psychology, Vol. 11, No. 1, 107-116 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/1359105306058853
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?