Waiting time for first outpatient visit in specialty level: assessing the provider related factors

Recently, there is an increased focus on waiting time as a barrier to access to treatment in outpatient services. The aim of this study is to determine related factors to outpatient waiting time in specialty levels.

This was a cross sectional study. The target population of this study consisted of specialist's and subspecialist's offices in Tehran. All the population (5475 cases) was studied; however 43.4% of them were not accessible. Accessible cases consist of 3098 physicians were included. Data gathered by telephone interview and analyzed by SPSS.

According to the findings, the level of care; type of specialty, being a faculty member, and office location was related to waiting time (p < 0.001). Waiting time was also correlated with the number of outpatient offices and clinics of each physician (rs= 0.11, P < 0.001), as well as office working hours per week (rs= -0.18, P < 0.001).

The estimated waiting time was acceptable, but the range of this parameter was too wide. This situation was more severe for some specialties and need some consideration. It should be considered that this study was restricted to Tehran. Waiting time is likely to be higher in other provinces of the country especially in deprived areas.