Background
: Fatigue is one of the most common problems encountered in family practice but its diagnosis and management are neither standardized nor simplified. This baseline study was conducted to find out the clinical characteristics. clinical courses, and outcomes of fatigued patients.

Methods : This study included 163 fatigued patients who visited a department of a university hospital based family practice due to fatigue as their prima교 or secondary complaint. We classified fatigue which persisted for more than 6 months as chronic fatigue, less than 6 months as acute fatigue. Retrospective review of medical record was used to collect all related clinical all related clinical characteristics and telephone interview was done to follow the course and outcomes of fatigue.

Results : Of the total 163 fatigued patients, 105 patients(64.4%) were men. Fifty two patients(31.9%) visited the clinic for complete health check-up due to fatigue. The rate of response to telephone interview was 62.6%. Fifty five patients(33.7%) were acute fatigue, 75 patients(46.0%) chronic fatigue, and 33 patients(20.2%) unknown duration of fatigue. According to the causes of fatigue, 11.7% of patients corresponded to organic cause, 60.7% psychiatric cause, 27.6% unknown cause. Specified organic causes of fatigue, chronic hepatitis was the most common disease followed by alcohol liver disease, most common disease followed by alcohol liver disease, arthritis, anemia, viral syndrome and hyperthyroidism. As psychiatric causes of fatigue, stress was the most common cause followed by overwork, alcohol abuse, depression, and anxiety. Reassurance and observation(71.8%), drug therapy(17.8%) were the most common treatments. These who felt their function decreased below 50% were 7.6% of total 102 patients. On the survival analysis, 58.2% of acute fatigue patients, 62.4% of chronic fatigue patients, 67.0% of unknown patients had fatigue for 2 years since the initial visit.

Conclusion : As the cause of fatigue in a family practice, psychiatric causes were more frequent than organic causes. As psychiatric causes of fatigue, stress was the most common cause followed by overwork and alcohol abuse. Only one third of the third of the fatigued patients had improved two years later.

Background
: It is important for the health care provider, particularly primary care physicians as gatekeepers of health care, to understand the social interests and needs toward health care. This study was done to find ways to deal with public opinion by analyzing the contributions of health care in the newspapers.

Methods : Two hundred twenty four contributions about health care were sorted out in the three national newspapers during one calendar year from January to December, 1996. These contributions were coded by themes and subjects according the content analysis and qualitative text interpretation.

Results : The contributions were classified into three categories; medical insurance, and hospital ser-vices, and health care policies. Forty four contributions of medical insurance category were coded into 5 themes and 18 subjects. Fifty eight contributions of hospital services category were coded into 3 themes and 31 subjects. One hundred twenty two contributions of medical insurance category were coded into 8 themes and 32 subjects. The themes and subjects were listed and major findings were described qualitatively. The characteristics of public opinions about health care were diversity, conflicting interests, plentifulness of complaints and discontent, and finally, infrequency of alternative proposals for problem solving. How to deal with public opinions were discussed.

Conclusion : We can recognize the public attitude of health care and complaints of patients and consumers of health care by analyzing the contributions in the newspapers. These data can be used to develop ways of primary care physicians to deal with patients' needs.