Time to Digest

摘要

Digestive disorders are among the most common health problems, but also one of those we least like talking about. While estimates suggest that GPs spend around 10% of their time dealing with patients who have digestive disorders (Jones et al, 2009), this may be far from the full picture: as many as 43% of the people in the UK (a representative sample of 2287 adults) say they have experienced a digestive problem, but up to 41% of those have never made an appointment with their GPs to discuss it (YouGov and Core, 2010). While many of those who stay away from their surgery say it's because they managed or resolved the symptoms themselves, 18% of those with a problem didn't think a GP could help, and 5% just didn't want to talk to anyone about their bowels (YouGov and Core, 2010).