Non-attendance of vulnerable populations within epilepsy outpatient services in Ireland

Outpatient non-attendance is a prevalent issue that contributes to significant wasted clinical resources and can be influenced by a number of complex factors.

The aim of this study is to characterize "did not attend" (DNA) rates in three identified subpopulations of epilepsy patients to determine if current care provision models suffice.

In this study, we identified all patients residing in social housing, in residential care, and those incarcerated who have been offered appointments by our service. We calculated the total number of appointments issued to each group over their entire interaction with our service and their subsequent non-attendance rate as a group. Additionally, we calculated the baseline DNA rate for our epilepsy clinic as a whole for comparison.

We found that the baseline DNA rate for the clinic as a whole was 18.9%. Those in social housing, in residential care, and incarcerated had significantly higher DNA rates of 24, 20.2, and 54.3%, respectively.

This study provided evidence that in certain groups of patients, clinicians may need to explore other care delivery models due to high DNA rates.