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Improving the attendance for new psychiatric out-patient referrals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

Martin Baggaley
Martin Baggaley*
Affiliation:
Munro Clinic, Guy's Hospital, London Bridge, London SE1 9RT
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A significant proportion of patients referred to psychiatric out-patient clinics fail to attend the first appointment. Previous work suggested that typically 30% do not attend (Burgess & Harrington, 1964; Skuse, 1975) and this results in an inefficient utilisation of psychiatrists' time. One solution would be to overbook new patients by 30%. Unfortunately the proportion of non-attendance at each clinic is variable and difficult to estimate in advance. Psychiatrists have been shown to be poor predictors of non-attendance from examining referral letters (Woods, 1992). Overbooking might result in a long waiting time and short time for assessment. Previous research has suggested patients are more likely to attend if they received a personal letter rather than a standard card, had a previous psychiatric history, and if they were seen in a health centre rather than a hospital (Hillis, 1990). Allaying the patient's fears and misconceptions about psychiatry also improved attendance (Skuse, 1975). Work in a child and family setting suggested that sending a family questionnaire prior to the appointment reduced the non-attendance rate (Mathai & Markantonakis, 1990).

Type
Original articles
Information
Psychiatric Bulletin , Volume 17 , Issue 6 , June 1993 , pp. 347 - 348
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists 1993

References

Burgess, J. & Harrington, J. (1964) 200 psychiatric outpatient non-attenders. Case Conference, 11, 58–60.Google Scholar
Hillis, G. (1990) Rejection of psychiatric treatment. Psychiatric Bulletin, 14, 149–150.Google Scholar
Mathai, J. & Markantonakis, A. (1990) Improving initial attendance to a child and family psychiatric clinic. Psychiatric Bulletin, 14, 151–152.Google Scholar
Skuse, D. (1975) Attitudes to the psychiatric out-patient clinic. British Medical Journal, 3, 469–471.Google Scholar
Woods, J. (1992) Can psychiatrists predict which new referrals will fail to attend? Psychiatric Bulletin, 16, 18–19.Google Scholar
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