An analysis of causes behind missed scheduled appointments at outpatient ENT clinics

Abstract

Abstract Objectives: To investigate missed appointments in Alhada Armed Forces hospitals (Prince Mansour hospital). Study Design: Prospective, descriptive series. Setting: ENT out-patients clinics. Method: Analysis of the clinic attendance statistics to identify patients who missed appointments. Results: Of 1275 patient booking over the duration of study, (60.30%) of patients kept their appointments at the clinics, while 40.70% missed appointments, and of the 519 patients, 16(3%) had no response to telephone calls or coming back to clinics. The youngest age group, 10 to 20 years, showed the highest rate of missed appointments, being 26.2%. Afternoon appointments had higher rate of no-show (63.5%) than morning (36.5%). Reasons given by no-show patients for missing their appointments are presented in figure (1). Unavailability of transportation constituted the highest proportion of reasons of no-show (26.4%) followed by forgetting the appointments (13.7%). The third frequently cited reason was work commitments (13.3%). These three reasons represented of the (53.6%) of the total reasons of the no-show. Conclusion: The 40.70% missed appointment rate is largely due to transport constraints. The authors seek to identify patients at risk of missed appointments and suggest interventions to decrease this incidence.