Non-attendance of appointments at the orthodontic clinic

Abstract

Abstract Aims To investigate the non-attendance of patients at orthodontic appointments and to determine related reasons. Methods Appointment data were collected from the Faculty of Dentistry, University of Otago between August and October in 2013 (paper-appointment system using post letters) and 2019 (digital-appointment system using automatically generated short message service (SMS) texts before the Covid-19 pandemic). The demographic and time characteristics of patients who attended and failed their appointments were collected for statistical analysis. Results The total number of appointments was 5810, including 2761 by 1901 patients in 2013 and 3049 by 2009 patients in 2019. The overall fail to attend (FTA) rates were 16.1% in 2013 and 12.9% in 2019. Morning appointments showed a higher failure rate (16.0% in 2013 and 14.2% in 2019) than the afternoon appointments (12.1% in 2013 and 11.1% in 2019) (p < 0.05). Bonding appointments had a significantly lower failure rate (6.2%) compared with other treatment procedures with an attendance rate of 93.8% (p < 0.05). People living between the 901 and 950 (higher socioeconomic status, SES) suburb index were 1.5 times less likely to fail compared with people living in other categories (p < 0.05). Conclusion The fail to attend (FTA) of orthodontic appointments was approximately 15% in the Otago University Orthodontic Clinic, New Zealand. Patients from lower SES, Māori and Pasifika peoples, and morning appointments had higher FTA rates. Bonding appointments had the lowest FTA rate. FTA significantly decreased after the introduction of a SMS text reminder system. An effort is still required to improve the orthodontic attendance rate, and future studies could consider investigating the digital reminder systems, such as smart phone apps, to enhance clinical attendance in the electronic age.