General practice

Patients' accounts of calling the doctor out of hours: qualitative study in one general practice

^a Department of General Practice, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9DX, ^b Westerhailes Health Centre, Edinburgh EH14 2SS

Correspondence to: Ms Hopton.

Abstract

Objective: To investigate patients' accounts of calling the doctor out of hours.
Design: Qualitative analysis of semi-structured interviews with two groups of patients who called their doctors out of hours from one general practice.
Subjects: 23 people who had called the doctor on their behalf or on behalf of another adult and 23 people who had called on behalf of a child between 6 pm and 8 am on a week day (omitting the weekend from 6 pm on Friday to 8 am on Monday).
Results: Although respondents described symptoms as the main reason for the call, they also described a range of other factors that led to the call, including their feelings, concerns about specific illnesses, their responsibility for others, and their previous attempts to manage the problem themselves. They also described past experiences with health services that were important in explaining the current out of hours call or explaining their general approach to using services.
Conclusions: The pursuit of a model of out of hours care based on medical necessity that neglects the psychosocial context of illness may not be appropriate. The importance of previous experiences of health services and contacts with health professionals in explaining current service use requires wider acknowledgement by health professionals across sectors. Separate educational programmes to encourage patients to use out of hours services more appropriately that neglect these issues may be too simplistic.

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    StumbleUpon    Technorati    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Salisbury, C, Burgess, A, Lattimer, V, Heaney, D, Walker, J, Turnbull, J, Smith, H (2005). Developing a standard short questionnaire for the assessment of patient satisfaction with out-of-hours primary care. Fam Pract 22: 560-569 [Abstract] [Full text]  
• Ehrich, K. (2003). Reconceptualizing 'Inappropriateness': Researching Multiple Moral Positions in Demand for Primary Healthcare. Health (London) 7: 109-126 [Abstract]  
• D'Alessandro, D., Kingsley, P. (2002). Creating a Pediatric Digital Library for Pediatric Health Care Providers and Families: Using Literature and Data to Define Common Pediatric Problems. J. Am. Med. Inform. Assoc. 9: 161-170 [Abstract] [Full text]  
• MCLELLAN, N. (1999). NHS Direct: here and now. Arch. Dis. Child. 81: 376-378 [Full text]  
• Free, C., White, P., Shipman, C., Dale, J. (1999). Access to and use of out-of-hours services by members of Vietnamese community groups in South London: a focus group study. Fam Pract 16: 369-374 [Abstract] [Full text]  
• Thomson, H., Ross, S., Wilson, P., McConnachie, A., Watson, R. (1999). Randomised controlled trial of effect of Baby Check on use of health services in first 6 months of life. BMJ 318: 1740-1744 [Abstract] [Full text]  
• Campbell, J. (1999). Patients' perceptions of medical urgency: does deprivation matter?. Fam Pract 16: 28-32 [Abstract] [Full text]  
• Roberts, H. (1996). Listen to the parents. BMJ 313: 954-955 [Full text]