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

Area of Science:

• Primary Care Medicine
• Health Services Research

Background:

• A minority of patients attend primary care practices without appointments, potentially affecting service quality.
• Understanding the characteristics of these walk-in patients is crucial for optimizing practice management.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare patients who consult primary care practices without an appointment versus those with scheduled appointments.
• To identify factors associated with patients attending without prior notice.

Main Methods:

• A questionnaire was administered to consecutive walk-in patients and followed by appointment patients across five primary care practices.
• Data collected included socio-demographics, reason for encounter, perceived and physician-assessed urgency, mental health symptoms, and personality traits.
• Univariate and multivariate statistical analyses were employed to examine differences between the groups.

Main Results:

• Patients without appointments were younger, had fewer chronic diseases, and presented with different reasons for encounter (e.g., respiratory issues).
• Physician-assessed urgency was significantly higher for walk-in patients, while patient-perceived urgency did not differ.
• Logistic regression identified younger age, male gender, absence of chronic disease, mental health conditions, specific personality traits, physician-assessed urgency, and certain clinical presentations as associated with being a walk-in patient.

Conclusions:

• Younger age and higher physician-assessed urgency were key predictors of patients attending without an appointment.
• Despite some differences, the overall variations between walk-in and appointment patients in practices with established systems were relatively minor.