The Chief Complaint formally known as CC in the medical field, or termed Presenting Complaint (PC) in the UK, forms the second step of medical history taking, and is a concise statement describing the symptom, problem, condition, diagnosis, physician recommended return, or other factor that is the reason for a medical
encounter.[1] The patient's initial comments to a physician, nurse, or other health care professional help form the differential diagnosis.
In some instances, the nature of a patient's chief complaint may determine whether or not services are covered by medical or vision insurance.[2]
Medical students are advised to use open-ended questions in order to obtain the presenting complaint.[3]
Other terms sometimes used include Reason for Encounter (RFE), Presenting Problem, Problem on admission and Reason for Presenting.
Analyzing for the chief complaint involves assessment using the acronym SOCRATES, OPQRST.
Prevalence
The collection of chief complaint data may be useful in addressing public health issues.[4] Certain complaints are more common in certain settings and among certain populations. Fatigue has been reported as one of the ten most common reasons for seeing a physician.[5] In acute care settings, such as emergency rooms, reports of chest pain are among the most common chief complaints.[6] The most common complaint in ERs has been reported to be abdominal pain.[7] Among nursing home residents seeking treatment at ERs, respiratory symptoms, altered mental status, gastrointestinal symptoms, and falls are the most commonly reported.[8]
Template:CMS Medical history types
See also
References
External links
- MedEd at Loyola ipm/comphx1/sld003.htm
- eMedicine Dictionary
Template:Medical records
This article was sourced from Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. World Heritage Encyclopedia content is assembled from numerous content providers, Open Access Publishing, and in compliance with The Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR), Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Public Library of Science, The Encyclopedia of Life, Open Book Publishers (OBP), PubMed, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and USA.gov, which sources content from all federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial government publication portals (.gov, .mil, .edu). Funding for USA.gov and content contributors is made possible from the U.S. Congress, E-Government Act of 2002.
Crowd sourced content that is contributed to World Heritage Encyclopedia is peer reviewed and edited by our editorial staff to ensure quality scholarly research articles.
By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. World Heritage Encyclopedia™ is a registered trademark of the World Public Library Association, a non-profit organization.