ArticleBMC health services research2023
Low agreement among patients and clinicians about urgency and safety to wait for assessment in primary care after hours medical care: results of cross-sectional matched surveys.
Article in BMC health services research, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Evaluation of the performance of telephone triage service.Scandinavian journal of trauma, resuscitation and emergency medicine · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundDiscordance between patient and clinician perceived urgency may drive "inappropriate" presentations to after-hours medical services. This paper investigates the level of agreement between patient and clinicians' perceptions of urgency and safety to wait for an assessment at after-hours primary care services in the ACT.
methodsCross-sectional survey voluntarily completed by patients and then clinicians at after-hours medical services in May/June, 2019. Agreement between patients and clinicians is measured by Fleiss kappa. Agreement is presented overall, within specific categories of urgency and safety to wait, and by after-hours service type.
results888 matched records were available from the dataset. Overall inter-observer agreement between patients and clinicians on the urgency of presentations was slight (Fleiss kappa = 0.166; 95% CI 0.117-0.215, p < 0.001). Agreement within specific ratings of urgency ranged from very poor to fair. Overall inter-rater agreement on how long it would be safe to wait for assessment was fair (Fleiss kappa = 0.209; 95% CI 0.165-0.253, p < 0.001). Agreement within specific ratings ranged from poor to fair. By site type, agreement between patients and clinicians on urgency ranged from not significant to fair and agreement for safety to wait ranged from very poor to slight. Agreement on urgency of issue was more often reported among patients attending their usual health service or seeing their usual clinician compared to patients attending an unfamiliar health service or clinician (χ
conclusionsLow levels of agreement between patients and clinicians on perceived urgency and safety to wait for issues to be assessed indicate potential inefficiency in primary care use after-hours. Agreement on urgency of issues was more common among patients attending a familiar health service or familiar clinician. Improving health literacy, particularly health system literacy, and supporting continuity of care may help to support patients to engage with the most appropriate level of care at the most appropriate time.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.