Symptom

Synonyms

Indicator

Definition

Symptoms represent self-reported evidence of a disease, disorder, or syndrome (Webster’s New Explorer Medical Dictionary 2006). Symptoms can reflect abnormal functioning in a variety of physical, behavioral, social, or emotional domains that may be associated with organic brain syndromes or psychiatric disorders. Professionals use the occurrence of a specific grouping of symptoms to eliminate certain diagnoses and to more closely consider others. The grouping of symptoms into a symptom complex is especially important since there may be considerable overlap of individual symptoms across diagnoses. For example, the physical symptom that a patient subjectively describes as a “headache” may be a characteristic of numerous diagnoses. Thus, the context in which this symptom occurs, in terms of the presence or absence of other diagnostic indicators, needs to be considered to formulate a diagnosis.