Do doctors understand their patients

: The extent to which doctors understand the complaints of their patients has been investigated by comparing patient complaints with the observation and assessment of these by the doctor. This involved questioning 259 patients and 30 doctor. From the 259 patients, three groups (a total of 57 patients) were formed, having common main symptomatologies. The extent to which the complaints of each of these patients corresponded with the clinical assessment was evaluated. The results revealed a close agreement between patient complaints and clinical assessment, not only for those patients with organo-medically diffuse symptoms (feeling of illness, tiredness, nervousness) but also for those with organ-medically clearly defined, localised (cardiac and thoracic pain) and mixed diffuse-localised complaints.