Table 1.

Symptom Scenario Questions

Symptom Descriptions*	Symptoms Consistent with …
Early HIV disease
Suppose you began to have difficulty breathing and had a cough with fever. (What would you do?)	Pneumonia
Suppose you had a headache with pressure behind your eyes and nose …	Sinusitis
Suppose you developed a whitish, painless coating on the tongue, throat, or inside of your cheeks …	Oral candidiasis
Advanced HIV disease
Suppose you began to have difficulty breathing and had a cough with fever. (What would you do?)	Pneumonia
Suppose you developed a severe headache that gets worse over two weeks and stiffness in your neck …	Meningitis
Suppose you had a change in your ability to see clearly and developed loss of visual field or blind spots …	Cytomegalovirus retinitis

^*Response options were go to the emergency room, go to the doctor's office or speak to the doctor the same day, schedule a special appointment, wait until the next scheduled appointment, or give it a chance to get better before seeing a doctor; the last two categories were combined in analyses. Identical symptom descriptions and response options were used in the physician survey, and physicians were asked to indicate which patient responses would be appropriate for each symptom description.