Symptoms in family practice: New findings using electronic medical record data

In the midst of increasing international interest in the symptoms that patients bring to their family physicians, an international symposium titled Symptoms in Family Practice: New Findings Using EMR Data was held on Nov 13, 2019, at the Western Centre for Public Health and Family Medicine in the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry at Western University in London, Ontario. Here, Stewart describe the context of the symposium and present the ideas that surfaced during vigorous discussions that took place there. The symposium opened with a brief review of the international literature on symptoms and its 6 main points. These include the evidence that symptoms generate 30 % to 60 % of the workload of daily family practice, depending on the study. In addition, the literature tells that persistent symptoms are correlated with high health care use, low quality of life, high work-related disability, and mortality. Of interest, studies have shown that at least one-third of common symptoms do not receive a disease diagnosis but rather remain unexplained and, where there is a disease diagnosis, it is made based on the history and physical examination alone.