Ross L V, Friman P C, Christophersen E R
Children's Mercy Hospital, Kansas City, Missouri 64108.
J Appl Behav Anal. 1993 Winter;26(4):461-7. doi: 10.1901/jaba.1993.26-461.
Child health-care appointments that are not kept are an important pediatric problem. Previous research has shown that reducing effort (with a parking pass) and reminding patients (with mailed and telephone reminders) significantly improved appointment keeping for first-time and patient-scheduled appointments. This study, using a posttest-only group design, evaluated the effects of various combinations of that intervention applied to clinic-scheduled follow-up appointments. All combinations of the intervention significantly increased cancellations, but none increased appointments kept or decreased appointments not kept significantly. Log linear analyses showed that the lag time between scheduling and the appointment significantly influenced appointment keeping. The results suggest that if clinics want to increase cancellations, a mailed reminder and effort reduction are sufficient. To increase appointment keeping, other interventions, such as reduced lag time, may be necessary.
爽约儿童保健预约是一个重要的儿科问题。先前的研究表明，减少就诊难度（提供停车证）并提醒患者（通过邮寄和电话提醒）能显著提高首次预约和患者自行安排预约的就诊率。本研究采用仅后测组设计，评估了将该干预措施的各种组合应用于诊所安排的随访预约的效果。干预措施的所有组合都显著增加了取消预约的情况，但没有一种组合能显著增加如约就诊的次数或减少爽约次数。对数线性分析表明，预约安排与实际就诊之间的时间间隔对就诊率有显著影响。结果表明，如果诊所想要增加取消预约的情况，邮寄提醒和减少就诊难度就足够了。若要提高就诊率，可能需要其他干预措施，比如缩短时间间隔。
