How serious does your illness have to be before you seek medical advice from your doctor? Would you only visit your GP for urgent or serious conditions?
You can be forgiven for thinking that patients visit their doctors more regularly for chronic illnesses such as heart disease or diabetes.
But a study of more than 140,000 patients in the American state of Minnesota revealed a surprising result.
The study of medical records from patients visiting three large health centres in the state showed that the majority of people were seeking help for joint disorders, back pain and skin issues.
A lot of research has been carried out on chronic conditions, which require vast amounts of health care and account of for the majority of health costs, but the latest study shows other illnesses and conditions could be costing just as much to treat.
Researchers looked at the records of 140,000 patients who had visited one of the health care providers between the beginning of January 2005 and the end of December 2009.
They sorted the patients into disease groups based on their diagnosis, these included skin disorders, osteoarthritis, back problems, cholesterol problems, respiratory conditions excluding asthma, depression, high blood pressure, headaches and diabetes.
Instead of the long-term diseases and conditions the researchers may have expected to find, such as diabetes, the common illnesses that led patients to visit their doctors were non acute, brief but severe.
Almost half of those patients studied were diagnosed with skin disorders, including acne and cysts.
The results were similar across all age groups and genders.
Researchers involved in the study hope that their findings could help them find the best way to treat, and even prevent, the conditions that are affecting the most people.
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