ArticleJournal of the Royal Society of Medicine2002
Why do patients not keep their appointments? Prospective study in a gastroenterology outpatient clinic.
Article in Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 2002. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 59 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
59 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 162 citations in OpenAlex.
- Mobile phone messaging reminders for attendance at healthcare appointments.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2013Pooled it
- Automated Reminders Improve Retinal Screening Rates in Low Income, Minority Patients with Diabetes and Correct the African American Disparity.Journal of medical systems · 2019Trial
- Effect of intervention using a messaging app on compliance and duration of treatment in orthodontic patients.Clinical oral investigations · 2016Trial
- Stating Appointment Costs in SMS Reminders Reduces Missed Hospital Appointments: Findings from Two Randomised Controlled Trials.PloS one · 2015Trial
- Text-messaging versus telephone reminders to reduce missed appointments in an academic primary care clinic: a randomized controlled trial.BMC health services research · 2013Trial
- Reduction of missed appointments at an urban primary care clinic: a randomised controlled study.BMC family practice · 2010Trial
- Comparison of an SMS text messaging and phone reminder to improve attendance at a health promotion center: a randomized controlled trial.Journal of Zhejiang University. Science. B · 2008Trial
- Written Recommendation to Repeat Colonoscopy within 1 Year after Inadequate Bowel Preparation: A Simple and Highly Effective Intervention.Endoscopy international open · 2026Article
- Patient-level barriers, related facilitators, and proposed strategies for timely home health care and outpatient appointments for sepsis survivors: Perspectives from healthcare system and home health care informants.Patient education and counseling · 2025Article
- Article
- Evaluation of no-show rate in outpatient clinics with open access scheduling system: A systematic review.Health science reports · 2024Article
- Factors and Reasons Associated With Appointment Non-attendance in Hospitals: A Narrative Review.Cureus · 2024Review
- Factors Influencing Compliance to Follow-up Visits in Orthopaedic Surgery.Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Global research & reviews · 2024Article
- Transportation barriers, emergency room use, and mortality risk among US adults by cancer history.Journal of the National Cancer Institute · 2023Article
- When and why patients drop out from benign thyroid nodules follow-up: a single centre experience.Endocrine · 2023Review
- Article
- Article
- Predicting non-attendance in hospital outpatient appointments using deep learning approach.Health systems (Basingstoke, England) · 2022Article
- A weekday intervention to reduce missed appointments.PloS one · 2022Article
- Characterising the nationwide burden and predictors of unkept outpatient appointments in the National Health Service in England: A cohort study using a machine learning approach.PLoS medicine · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Unkept outpatient appointments are a drain on resources. In a prospective study we asked non-attenders at a gastroenterology clinic why they had missed their appointment. 103 patients missed their appointment (14% of the total invited); 3 had died. The remaining 100 were asked to complete questionnaires, 68 by mail (43 returned) and 32 by telephone (30 successful); the response rate was thus 73%. 49 of the respondents were new patients, 6 of them with urgent referrals. The explanations for non-attendance by the 73 patients were: forgot to attend or to cancel (30%); no reason (26%); clerical errors (10%); felt better (8%), fearful of being seen by junior doctor (3%); inpatient in another hospital (3%); miscellaneous other (20%). 13 (27%) of the review patients had not kept one or more previous appointments. The non-attendance rates for different clinics ranged from 10% to 25% (average 14%). A substantial number of non-attenders claimed to have forgotten their appointment or to cancel it. If, as we surmise, this reflects apathy, no strategy to improve attendance is likely to have great impact. Since the non-attendance rate is reasonably constant, it can be taken into account when patients are booked.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.