Service Development: Assessing Non-attendance Rates in Outpatient Clinics

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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Many studies have shown a high non-attendance rate in hospital outpatient clinics. The investigators have found a non-attendance rate of 25% in their asthma clinics and would like to investigate whether a reminder phone call will improve attendance rates. Patients will be randomised into two groups; one group will receive a reminder phone call one week prior to their hospital consultation and the other group will be managed in the standard manner (i.e. no reminder of any sort). The phone calls will be carried out on a Friday afternoon by a respiratory nurse specialist and a research officer for two asthma clinics based on a Wednesday morning and a Thursday afternoon.

Detailed Description
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Many studies have shown a high non-attendance rate in hospital outpatient clinics. The investigators have found a non-attendance rate of 25% in their asthma clinics and would like to investigate whether a reminder phone call will improve attendance rates. Patients will be randomised into two groups; one group will receive a reminder phone call one week prior to their hospital consultation and the other group will be managed in the standard manner (i.e. no reminder of any sort). The phone calls will be carried out on a Friday afternoon by a respiratory nurse specialist and a research officer for two asthma clinics based on a Wednesday morning and a Thursday afternoon. To have an 80% chance of detecting a 10% reduction in non-attendance rates (at 5%) 500 patients are required for this study. The rate of non-attendance will be monitored for all the patients in both groups and some demographic information will be recorded for each patient(age, sex, diagnosis and home postcode).

Official Title
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Service Development: Assessing Non-attendance Rates in Outpatient Clinics

Conditions
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Asthma, Sleep Apnea Syndromes, Tuberculosis, COPD

Intervention / Treatment
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* Behavioral: Telephone reminder call


Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria: Patients with appointments booked for 2 respiratory outpatient clinics Exclusion criteria Patients likely to only need one appointment

Ages Eligible for Study
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Minimum Age: 18 Years
Maximum Age: 90 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
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All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Design Details

Primary Purpose: Health Services Research
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| No Intervention: control group<br>This group received usual care and did not receive a telephone reminder | |
| Active Comparator: telephone reminder group<br>This group received a telephone reminder for their clinic appointment | Behavioral: Telephone reminder call<br> <br> |

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Attendance Rates at Respiratory Outpatient Clinics | rates of attendance measured for scheduled clinics - attended patients | after phone call within 1 week | 

 Terms related to the study
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Keywords Provided by Centre Hospitalier Valida
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Telephone reminder