Evaluating the reasons for nonattendance to outpatient consultations: is waiting time an important factor?

Nonattendance is a common problem worldwide. Important factors for nonattendance are a queue or the waiting time until the planned service.

The aims of this study were to identify the reasons for nonattendance to planned consultations, assess the waiting time from registration to access to an outpatient specialist consultation, and identify the associations between the reasons for nonattendance and the waiting time until the planned outpatient specialist consultation.

A cross-sectional study based on a phone questionnaire was conducted among patients not attending a planned consultation at the outpatient department of the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences Kaunas Hospital in Kaunas, Lithuania. A total of 972 phone calls were made, and 389 telephone surveys were completed.

The mean respondents' waiting time until the planned outpatient consultation was 15.13 ± 10 days. The highest proportion of nonattendance was observed when the wait time was between 6 and 17 days. More often, the patients did not attend the planned outpatient consultation due to worsened health status (24.69%), unidentified personal problems (14.91%), work-related problems (13.62%) and being unaware about the appointment (11.82%). A longer waiting time was significantly associated with the following reasons for nonattendance: work-related problems, health problems solved at another health care institution, unidentified personal problems and unknown reasons for nonattendance. The highest proportions of nonattending patients had consultations registered with neurologists (17.0%), traumatologists (11.3%) and cardiologists (10.5%).

Patients did not identify the long waiting time until outpatient specialist consultation among the main reasons for nonattendance. The issue of waiting time is not an important aspect of nonattendance.