Objective: We aimed to estimate nonattendance to scheduled medical ambulatory appointments rates globally and by subgroups.
Design and participants: We designed a retrospective cohort of all adult outpatients over 18 years old who requested at least one scheduled ambulatory medical appointment from 1 January 2015 to 31 December 2016.
Setting: Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires is a university general hospital in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It includes an integrated health care network that is formed by two high complexity hospitals and 22 primary care centers.
Results: The age median was 60.4 years, and 31.33% of the appointments were scheduled by men; 2 526 549 appointments fulfilled selection criteria, belonging to 348 420 patients. The global nonattendance rate was 27.84% (95% CI, 27.79-27.9). The nonattendance rate to general practitioner appointments was 25.53% (95% CI, 25.42-25.63); to clinical specialties, 27.78% (95% CI, 27.68-27.87); and to surgical specialties, 29.31% (95% CI, 29.23-29.4).
Conclusions: Because of the consistent variability of nonattendance in different settings, it is strongly recommended that local estimates are used in the design of effective interventions to improve adherence with outpatient healthcare scheduled appointments.
Keywords: No-Show Patients; Patient Compliance; outpatient.
© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.