Objectives: To explore and describe what it means to be a GP meeting patients with non-specific symptoms.
Design: Focus group interviews analysed in a phenomenological approach.
Setting: GPs at two urban healthcare centres from a big city, a low socioeconomic area with mostly immigrants and a high socioeconomic area, and from a smaller town.
Subjects: 14 GPs in 3 focus groups.
Results: The essence of the study was the GPs' feeling of being a "helpless helpoholic". All GPs specified the patient with non-specific symptoms as a female patient with muscular pain. The key constituents were: inconsistent patient, insufficient tools, frustration, helplessness, and devotion to help. The tools were described as communication skills, biomedical education, and holistic perspective. Even if most informants were trained in communication skills, this did not help to avoid the feeling of helplessness.
Conclusions: To be a "helpless helpoholic" may make the GPs less patient-centred and may create even more feelings of frustration and helplessness. This can be an important reason why consultations with female patients with non-specific muscular pain often fail.