Table 1

Gastrointestinal diagnoses in 255 patients presenting to general practitioners

	No of patients	Per cent of patients with “gut problems”	Per cent of 3111 screened patients
Functional	112	43.9	3.6
Irritable bowel syndrome	76	29.8	2.4
Functional constipation	6	2.4
Functional diarrhoea	1
Functional abdominal bloating	1
Chronic abdominal pain	3	1.2
Other functional bowel	9	3.5
Non-ulcer dyspepsia	9	3.5
Heartburn but no oesophagitis	6	2.4
Other upper gut symptoms	1
Organic	100	39.2	3.2
Gastroenteritis	24	9.4
Drug induced symptoms	20	7.8
Oesophagitis	13	5.1
Inflammatory bowel disease	12	4.7
Anorectal disease	7	2.7
Peptic ulcer	6	2.3
Postsurgery	6	2.3
Diverticulitis	4
Gallstones	5
Liver disease	1
Unknown	43	16.9	1.4
Dyspepsia, not endoscoped	13	5.1
Heartburn, not endoscoped	17	6.7
Transient gut symptoms	10	3.9
Unknown	3
Total	255	100	8.2

The diagnoses were established by review of case notes six months after the initial visit.