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Table 2 Interview guide

From: Recognition of patients with medically unexplained physical symptoms by family physicians: results of a focus group study

1

Think of a patient with MUPS

a. What are characteristics of this patient?

b. What are characteristics of the patient’s complaints?

2

Regarding recognizing MUPS in your patients:

a. Many doctors say that they know whether they are dealing with a patient with MUPS within a short time. What is your opinion and experience regarding this issue?

b. Some of the complaints that you almost instantly consider to be MUPS are indeed MUPS and some are not. When do you adjust your hypothesis?

c. Do hunches play a role in the recognition of MUPS? Or feelings that are evoked in you? If so, can you describe these hunches and feelings?

d. Does the background of the patient (or the story the patient tells with regard to his complaints) play a role in the recognition of MUPS? How and to what extent?

e. Does recognition depend on how much you can empathize with the patient or the complaint? Do you still consider it MUPS when you empathize?

f. Does the patient’s insight in social or psychological contributors to his complaints play a role in the recognition of MUPS? How and to what extent?

g. Does the quality of the physician-patient relationship play a role in the recognition of MUPS? How and to what extent?

h. Do you still consider it to be MUPS when a patient is agreeable and you like him?

3

I would like to hear your opinion on the following statement: "Every doctor has his own type of MUPS patient". (Does the personality of the doctor influence the recognition of MUPS?)

4

Is there a difference, with regard to the recognition of MUPS, between patients who you have known for long time and patients you hardly know?

5

Are you able to distinguish different subgroups of patients with MUPS? How?