[Are out of hours contacts with physicians necessary? Assessment by physicians on call and by patients]

Patients and GPs were asked about necessity and possible prevention of contacts to the out of hour service. 4187 (83.9%) of the GP questionnaires and 1493 (52.3%) of the patient questionnaires were returned. According to the GPs 25% of the contacts were not necessary and 5% were not necessary according to the patients. Patients and GPs agreed that contacts concerning old people were most necessary. GPs assessed contacts concerning children relatively more necessary. Patients assessed contacts concerning middle-aged relatively more necessary. Frequent users were assessed less necessary according to GPs but more necessary according to the users themselves. Many contacts could have been prevented according to both GPs and patients--especially within the first five hours of the service. Concordance between a patient's and a GPs answer was bad (kappa = 0.0-0.2). Concordance between the GPs answering the phone and the GPs examining the patient was only slightly better (kappa = 0.1-0.3).