[Medical decision making in symptoms of XXXX in general practice].

@entity1 @entity5 @entity6 @entity2175
BACKGROUND: @entity1 and physician attributes influence medical decisions as non-medical factors. The current study examines the influence of @entity1 age and gender and physicians' gender and years of clinical experience on medical decision making in @entity1 with undiagnosed @entity2175 . METHOD: A factorial experiment was conducted to estimate the influence of @entity1 and physician attributes. An identical physician @entity1 encounter with a @entity1 presenting with @entity6 symptoms was videotaped with varying @entity1 attributes. Professional actors played the " @entity1 ". A sample of 64 randomly chosen and stratified (gender and years of experience) primary care physicians was interviewed about the presented videos. RESULTS: Results show few significant differences in diagnostic decisions: Younger @entity1 were asked more frequently about psychosocial problems while with older @entity1 a @entity5 diagnosis was more often taken into consideration. Female physicians made an earlier second appointment date compared to male physicians. Physicians with more years of professional experience considered more often @entity6 as the diagnosis than physicians with less experience. CONCLUSION: Medical decision making in @entity1 with @entity2175 is only marginally influenced by @entity1 ' and physicians' characteristics under study.
