Key points are not available for this paper at this time.
The authors studied 1,106 consecutive patients who called for an initial outpatient appointment at a medical center department of psychiatry during a one-year period. The 759 (68.6%) patients who kept their initial scheduled appointment differed from the 347 (31.4%) who did not in age, previous psychiatric treatment, source of referral, chief complaint, and number of days they waited for an appointment. A telephone follow-up conducted with almost 30% of those who did not keep their initial appointment revealed that of those contacted, 26 (25%) sought other routes for psychiatric help and 23 (22%) made a subsequent contact at the facility studied.
Carpenter et al. (Thu,) studied this question.
Synapse has enriched 5 closely related papers on similar clinical questions. Consider them for comparative context: