Women's undefined disorders--a challenge for clinical communication.

Patients presenting illness without disease are common in general practice. A clinical communicative method was developed in order to clarify women's 'undefined' disorders. Outcomes from this approach registered from 122 audiotaped consultations were qualitatively analysed, in order to explore potential conditions and premises constituting the phenomena labelled as undefined. Knowledge produced by female patients was applied for transformation of the undefined nature of the problem into various levels of medical understanding. Gender-specific illness-promotive mechanisms were identified, as well as certain communicative dilemmas distorting symptom presentation into undefinedness. Relevant medical management was also suggested.