The Chief Complaint formally known as CC in the medical field, or termed Presenting Complaint (PC) in the UK, is a concise statement describing the symptom

Symptom

A symptom is a departure from normal function or feeling which is noticed by a patient, indicating the presence of disease or abnormality...

, problem, condition

Condition

-Logic:* Logical conditional* Necessary and sufficient condition, condition of another means that the former statement is true if and only if the latter is true-Computer programming:* Conditions, a generalization of exceptions in exception-handling...

, diagnosis

Diagnosis

Diagnosis is the identification of the nature and cause of anything. Diagnosis is used in many different disciplines with variations in the use of logics, analytics, and experience to determine the cause and effect relationships...

, physician

Physician

A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...

 recommended return, or other factor that is the reason for a medical
encounter. The patient's initial comments to a physician, nurse, or other health care professional help form the differential diagnosis

Differential diagnosis

A differential diagnosis is a systematic diagnostic method used to identify the presence of an entity where multiple alternatives are possible , and may also refer to any of the included candidate alternatives A differential diagnosis (sometimes abbreviated DDx, ddx, DD, D/Dx, or ΔΔ) is a...

.

In some instances, the nature of a patient's chief complaint may determine whether or not services are covered by medical

Health insurance

Health insurance is insurance against the risk of incurring medical expenses among individuals. By estimating the overall risk of health care expenses among a targeted group, an insurer can develop a routine finance structure, such as a monthly premium or payroll tax, to ensure that money is...

 or vision insurance

Vision insurance

Vision insurance is a form of insurance that provides coverage for the services rendered by eye care professionals such as ophthalmologists and optometrists. There are many vision insurance companies...

.

Medical student

Medical Student

Medical Student may refer to:*Someone studying at medical school*Medical Student Newspaper, a UK publication...

s are advised to use open-ended questions in order to obtain the presenting complaint.

Other terms sometimes used include Reason for Encounter (RFE), Presenting Problem, Problem on admission and Reason for Presenting.

Prevalence

The collection of chief complaint data may be useful in addressing public health

Public health

Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals" . It is concerned with threats to health based on population health...

 issues. Certain complaints are more common in certain settings and among certain populations. Fatigue has been reported as one of the ten most common reasons for seeing a physician. In acute care

Acute care

Acute care is a branch of secondary health care where a patient receives active but short-term treatment for a severe injury or episode of illness, an urgent medical condition, or during recovery from surgery...

 settings, such as emergency rooms, reports of chest pain

Chest pain

Chest pain may be a symptom of a number of serious conditions and is generally considered a medical emergency. Even though it may be determined that the pain is non-cardiac in origin, this is often a diagnosis of exclusion made after ruling out more serious causes of the pain.-Differential...

 are among the most common chief complaints. The most common complaint in ERs has been reported to be abdominal pain

Abdominal pain

Abdominal pain can be one of the symptoms associated with transient disorders or serious disease. Making a definitive diagnosis of the cause of abdominal pain can be difficult, because many diseases can result in this symptom. Abdominal pain is a common problem...

. Among nursing home

Nursing home

A nursing home, convalescent home, skilled nursing unit , care home, rest home, or old people's home provides a type of care of residents: it is a place of residence for people who require constant nursing care and have significant deficiencies with activities of daily living...

 residents seeking treatment at ERs, respiratory

Respiratory system

The respiratory system is the anatomical system of an organism that introduces respiratory gases to the interior and performs gas exchange. In humans and other mammals, the anatomical features of the respiratory system include airways, lungs, and the respiratory muscles...

 symptoms, altered mental status, gastrointestinal symptoms, and falls

Falling (accident)

Falling is a major cause of personal injury, especially for the elderly. Builders, electricians, miners, and painters represent worker categories representing high rates of fall injuries. The WHO estimate that 392,000 people die in falls every year...

are the most commonly reported.