Illness and disease in female patients. I. Pitfalls and inadequacies of primary health care classification systems--a theoretical review.

Causal understanding is looked upon as fundamental for scientific medical management. Classification systems for symptoms as well as for diagnoses are describing disease--not illness. Several conditions--most often problems presented by female patients--cannot be given an adequate classification within these systems. Reasons for this are discussed as regards communication and context of the encounter between female patients and male doctors. Medical consequences of suffering from problems with no diagnostic name are described. Several ways of relieving the doctor's inadequacy by improving the communication are suggested.