The patient's family history: a key to the physician's understanding of patients' fears.

Patients often feel considerably worried by conditions that appear to be biomedically mild to their physicians. Their reaction may be linked to personal experience from cases of severe disease in their family history. In this qualitative study, 30 primary health care patients were interviewed about their definition of their present problem, their fears and associations with their family history. For several patients, the discrepancy between objective signs and fears was linked to cases in their family. Death or threats to life, especially when occurring prematurely, appeared to be significant. The same was true for actual or threatening disability in family members. A condition perceived to have been overlooked also seemed to be important for some patients. These findings may be used to understand patients' rationale for seeking care. The subject should be the theme for further investigation.