NIHR (UK) to fund "Medically Unexplained Symptoms (MUS): Primary Care Intervention"

[Dolphin]

@Maxwhd on Twitter highlighted the following:

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Medically Unexplained Symptoms (MUS): Primary Care Intervention.

Funded by the NIHR*, and undertaken by Joanna Leaviss, Andrew Booth, Sarah Davis, Glenys Parry, Shijie Ren, Alison Scope, Matthew Stevenson and Anthea Sutton.

http://scharrheds.blogspot.ie/2015/08/new-projects.html

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(from The University of Sheffield (UK) website)

*i.e. the taxpayer.

Perhaps further information is available somewhere.

I don't like the Medically Unexplained Symptoms category. I particularly don't like when they have trials of behavioural interventions for them:
basically they tend to amount to "we'll call the various mixed bag of conditions medically unexplained but we'll assume they're due to the same/similar maladaptive beliefs and behaviours"

 

[WillowJ]

I don't like the Medically Unexplained Symptoms category. I particularly don't like when they have trials of behavioural interventions for them:
basically they tend to amount to "we'll call the various mixed bag of conditions medically unexplained but we'll assume they're due to the same/similar maladaptive beliefs and behaviours"

True.

Worse, they tend to get what is really a null result and find a way to call it effective. What a waste of money, and even worse, of patients' and doctors' time and effort, not to mention the ill effect on patient-doctor relations and various aspects of patient wellbeing.

 

[Woolie]

Whenever you see articles about "medically unexplained symptoms" you will inevitably see within it an alarming statement about how much these troublesome patients overutilise health care resources, and end up costing a fortune in time and money (which, it is implied, could be much better spent on genuine deserving patients, although this is never said, merely implied).

So yea, I expect the UK NIHR has bought this argument and thinks interventions like this might help these troublesome people to go away.

To me, statements about the high prevalence of medically unexplained symptoms are nothing more than statements of the limits of our current medical understanding. The fact these patients use a lot of health resources is because they're looking for answers, but are being constantly fobbed off. Best way to cut their utilisation is to find some answers, not news ways to fob them off.

 

[A.B.]

So yea, I expect the UK NIHR has bought this argument and thinks interventions like this might help these troublesome people to go away.

I'm sure these interventions do make people go away. The more ridiculous and harmful they are, the more likely the patients will not return.

 

[jimells]

To me, statements about the high prevalence of medically unexplained symptoms are nothing more than statements of the limits of our current medical understanding.

Are there any studies that compare the prevalence of "MUS" to the inability of physicians to accurately diagnose disease? Now that would be interesting and informative research...