[Illness behavior and expectations on physician-patient relationships of medical students in the second and fifth year of education].
We investigated illness behaviour and treatment expectations of future physicians. 209 medical students in their second and 110 students in their fifth year of education were examined by means of a specific questionnaire and the Biographic Inventory for Diagnosis of Abnormal Behaviour (BIV). As to our questionnaire we found a six factors solution that could explain 44% of the variance. Students in the fifth year of education were more critical towards physicians, waited longer until they took advantage of professional help, tried more to influence both the diagnostic and therapeutic process and they adhered stronger to a psychosocial concept of illness than the second year students. Women desired more psychological support and fell back on household remedies more often than men. Students who had experienced a poor parent-child-relationship also were dissatisfied with their physician-patient-relationship. Introverted students were less demanding towards their physicians and more often searched for help in the lay system than extroverted students. With these factors, behaviour, experiences and attitudes of medical students with reference to a potential or actual patient role can be well described.