Observational studyThe British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners2016
Telephone triage by GPs in out-of-hours primary care in Denmark: a prospective observational study of efficiency and relevance.
Observational study in The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers, 2 of them syntheses 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
25 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 51 citations in OpenAlex.
- Strategies to improve the implementation of preventive care in primary care: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC medicine · 2024Pooled it
- Consistency of decision support software-integrated telephone triage and associated factors: a systematic review.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2021Pooled it
- Impact of caller's degree-of-worry on triage response in out-of-hours telephone consultations: a randomized controlled trial.Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine · 2019Trial
- Task shifting from general practitioners to nurses and the association with patient flow and resource use in out-of-hours primary care clinics: a descriptive register-based study.Scandinavian journal of primary health care · 2026Article
- Task shifting from general practitioners to nurses in out-of-hours primary care: an explorative case study of team-based practices.Scandinavian journal of primary health care · 2025Article
- Uses of Virtual Care in Primary Care: Scoping Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Article
- Access systems in general practice: a systematic scoping review.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2024Article
- Building a performance measurement framework for telephone triage services in Finland: a consensus-making study based on nominal group technique.Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine · 2024Article
- Identifying performance indicators to measure overall performance of telephone triage - a scoping review.Scandinavian journal of primary health care · 2024Article
- Afterhours telehealth in Australian residential aged care facilities: a mixed methods evaluation.BMC health services research · 2023Article
- Rural and Urban patients' Requirements and Experiences of Out-of-hours medical care after cancer (RUREO): a questionnaire study.BMJ open · 2023Article
- Impact of Increased Patient-Clinician Virtual Visits During the COVID-19 Pandemic on Medical Student Enthusiasm for Future General Practice Careers.Family medicine · 2023Article
- Telemedicine and virtual respiratory care in the era of COVID-19.ERJ open research · 2022Review
- Digital Health Opportunities to Improve Primary Health Care in the Context of COVID-19: Scoping Review.JMIR human factors · 2022Article
- Provider Perceptions of Virtual Care During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic: A Multispecialty Survey Study.Medical care · 2021Article
- Self-rated worry is associated with hospital admission in out-of-hours telephone triage - a prospective cohort study.Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine · 2020Article
- Patient motives for contacting out-of-hours care in Denmark: a cross-sectional study.BMC emergency medicine · 2020Observational
- Article
- Sociodemographic and health-related determinants for making repeated calls to a medical helpline: a prospective cohort study.BMJ open · 2019Article
- Factors affecting medical file documentation during telephone triage at an emergency call centre: a cross-sectional study of out-of-hours home visits by general practitioners in France.BMC health services research · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundIn the UK, telephone triage in out-of-hours primary care is mostly managed by nurses, whereas GPs perform triage in Denmark.
aimTo describe telephone contacts triaged to face-to-face contacts, GP-assessed relevance, and factors associated with triage to face-to-face contact. DESIGN AND
settingA prospective observational study in Danish out-of-hours primary care, conducted from June 2010 to May 2011.
methodInformation on patients was collected from the electronic patient administration system and GPs completed electronic questionnaires about the contacts. The GPs conducting the face-to-face contacts assessed relevance of the triage to face-to-face contacts. The authors performed binomial regression analyses, calculating relative risk (RR) and 95% confidence intervals.
resultsIn total, 59.2% of calls ended with a telephone consultation. Factors associated with triage to a face-to-face contact were: patient age >40 years (40-64: RR = 1.13; >64: RR = 1.34), persisting problem for 12-24 hours (RR = 1.15), severe problem (RR = 2.60), potentially severe problem (RR = 5.81), and non-severe problem (RR = 2.23). Face-to-face contacts were assessed as irrelevant for 12.7% of clinic consultations and 11.7% of home visits. A statistically significantly higher risk of irrelevant face-to-face contact was found for a persisting problem of >24 hours (RR = 1.25), contact on weekday nights (RR = 1.25), and contact <2 hours before the patient's own GP's opening time (RR = 1.80).
conclusionAround 12% of all face-to-face consultations in the study are assessed as irrelevant by GP colleagues, suggesting that GP triage is efficient. Knowledge of the factors influencing triage can provide better education for GPs, but future studies are needed to investigate other quality aspects of GP telephone triage.
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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.