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Comparative Study
. 2018 Jun 23;19(1):101.
doi: 10.1186/s12875-018-0787-5.

Do general practice patients with and without appointment differ? Cross-sectional study

Bernhard Riedl  1 , Simon Kehrer  1 , Christoph U Werner  1 , Antonius Schneider  1 , Klaus Linde  2
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Do general practice patients with and without appointment differ? Cross-sectional study

Bernhard Riedl et al. BMC Fam Pract. .

Abstract

Background: Even in practices with a comprehensive appointment system a minority of patients walks in without prior notice, sometimes causing problems for practice service quality. We aimed to explore differences between patients consulting primary care practices with and without appointment.

Methods: Consecutive patients visiting five primary care practices without an appointment and following patients with an appointment were asked to fill in a four-page questionnaire addressing socio-demographic characteristics, the reason for encounter, urgency of seeing a physician, depressive, somatic and anxiety symptoms, personality traits, and satisfaction with the practice. Physicians also documented the reason for encounter and assessed the urgency. Data were analyzed using univariate and multivariate methods.

Results: Two hundred fifty-one patients without and 250 patients with appointment participated. Patients without appointment were significantly younger (mean age 44 vs. 50 years) and reported less often chronic diseases (29% vs. 45%). Also, reasons for encounter differed (e.g., 27% vs. 16% with a respiratory problem). Patients' ratings of urgency did not differ between groups (p = 0.46), but physicians rated urgency higher among patients without appointment (p < 0.001). In logistic regression analyses younger age, male gender, absence of chronic disease, positive screening for at least one mental disorder, low values on the personality trait openness for experience, a high urgency rating by the physician, and a respiratory or musculoskeletal problem as reason for encounter were significantly associated with a higher likelihood of being a patient without appointment.

Conclusions: In this study, younger age and a high urgency rating by physicians were the variables most consistently associated with the likelihood of being a patient without appointment. Overall, differences between patients seeking general practices with a comprehensive appointment system without prior notice and patients with appointments were relatively minor.

Keywords: Mental disorders; Organization; Primary care; Waiting times; Walk-in patients.

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Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The study protocol was approved by the ethics committee of the Medical Faculty of the Technical University of Munich (reference number 335/15). All participants gave oral consent to participate in the completely anonymous study. Participants were not asked to give written informed consent because this would have implied to document their identity resulting in pseudonymized instead of anonymized data collection. The ethics committee approved this approach.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Reasons for visiting the practice among patients without appointment (n = 251)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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