Telephone nursing: calls and caller satisfaction

Area of Science:

• Health Services Research
• Nursing Informatics

Background:

• Telephone nursing, or nurse advice lines, are increasingly utilized in healthcare.
• Understanding the role and effectiveness of these services is crucial for resource allocation and patient care.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the function and outcomes of calls to a Medical Call Centre.
• To assess caller satisfaction and adherence to advice provided by telephone nurses.

Main Methods:

• All calls (n=2866) to the Stockholm Medical Call Centre were recorded over one week.
• A mailed questionnaire was sent to every tenth caller (n=203) to gather data on consultation and satisfaction.

Main Results:

• The most frequent reason for calls was infection symptoms.
• Self-care advice was the predominant outcome (49%), with 85% of respondents following it.
• 95% of callers reported satisfaction with the consultation.
• The Call Centre advised physician visits more frequently than other healthcare settings.

Conclusions:

• Telephone nursing services provide effective self-care advice for common ailments like infections.
• These services demonstrate high caller satisfaction and adherence to recommendations.
• Medical Call Centres may play a distinct role in healthcare triage compared to traditional settings.