Inductive foraging: patients taking the lead in diagnosis, a mixed-methods study

Patient involvement in treatment decisions is widely accepted. Making a diagnosis, however, is still seen as a technical task mainly driven by physicians. Patients in this respect are perceived as passive providers of data. But, recent patient-centred concepts highlight the value of an active patient involvement in diagnosis.

We aim to reach a deeper understanding of how patients themselves contribute to the diagnostic process.

This is an observational study of patient consultations with their General Practitioner (GP) in 12 German practices. We performed a mixed-method qualitative and quantitative analysis of 134 primary care consultations.

At the beginning of most consultations lies a phase where patients were invited to freely unfold their reason for encounter: This was named "inductive foraging" (IF). While patients actively present their complaints, GPs mainly listen and follow the presentation. This episode was found with every GP participating in this study. Ninety-one percent of consultations with diagnostic episodes were opened by IF. IF had a major contribution to the number of cues (diagnostic information) yielded in the diagnostic process. We illustrate a variety of tactics GPs make use of to invite, support, and terminate their patients in IF.

IF was found to be a highly relevant strategy in the diagnostic process. Patient involvement through IF offered a major contribution of diagnostic cues. We hypothesize that a patient-centred approach improves diagnosis.