Physical and Emotional Function of Primary Care Patients: Scientific Requirements for the Measurement of Functional Health Status

The recent World Health Organization report, Development of Indicators for Monitoring Progress Towards Health for All by the Year 2000,1 focused attention on alternative indicators for measuring health problems. In the primary care setting, defining health in terms of diagnoses is problematic because often only symptoms and the functional status of the patient's problem are known, not the underlying pathophysiology.2,3 As more primary care …