Who Fails Appointments at Psychiatric Clinics in a General Hospital in Taiwan

Abstract

Objectives: The aims of this study were to identify and to analyze the characteristics of the patients who missed appointment at psychiatric clinics in a general hospital. Methods: We collected the appointment data in a general hospital during the month of December 2006. Patients' demographic data, diagnoses, and whether the appointment of initial or follow-up clinic visits were recorded retrospectively from patients' medical records. With descriptive and analytical statistics, we compared the differences between patients who kept and those who missed their appointments. We also identified the reasons for failure to keep appointments. Results: We found that 970 patients who made appointments over the month. Of these, 177 patients were found to miss their appointments with a rate of absence of 18.2%. No significant sex difference was found between those two groups. However, we found that the patients who missed their appointments tended to be younger, to have more diagnosis with depressive disorders, and they were likely to miss a follow-up appointment, and that 86 patients returned to psychiatric clinics within three months of their missing the index appointments (48.6%). Conclusion: In our study, younger patients, patients with depressive disorders, and follow-up patients had a higher rate of failed clinic appointments. These results of this study can be used to identify patients who are at risk of not showing up their appointments, and to design interventions to reduce the risk factors for nonattendance.