JOIN USDoctors, listen to your patients
When a patient complains that he or she doesn’t feel well, doctors should pay attention. That’s the finding of a new study that suggests that how patients say they feel may be a better predictor of health than objective measures like a blood test. The study, published in Psychoneuroendocrinology, used data from 1,500 people who took part in the Texas City Stress and Health Study, which tracked people living near Houston, USA.
The survey included self-assessments from a 36-item questionnaire as well as blood samples, which were analysed for markers of inflammation and the activity of latent herpes viruses. (The viruses were benign and not the type associated with sexually transmitted disease or cold sores.) Inflammation and viral activity are general markers of immune system health, but they don’t typically cause any obvious symptoms or show up in traditional blood tests.
The study found that when people said they felt poorly, they had high virus and inflammation levels. People who reported feeling well had low virus and inflammation levels.
“I think the take-home message is that self-reported health matters,” said Christopher P Fagundes, an assistant psychology professor at Rice University, USA and a co-author of the study. “Physicians should pay close to attention to their patients. There are likely biological mechanisms underlying why they feel their health is poor.”