Acceptance of genitourinary medicine clinic appointments within 48 hours is influenced by patient perception of risk but not by symptoms

Abstract

The Department of Health has addressed access to genitourinary medicine services by setting targets that 100% of patients should be offered an appointment within 48 hours of contact and 95% should be seen within 48 hours. Such rapid access appointments are often declined by patients. We wished to ascertain whether patient perception of health risk or the presence of symptoms suggestive of a sexually transmitted infection (STI) might influence how quickly patients accept an appointment. We designed a two-armed study which demonstrated that up to 37% of patients offered an appointment within 48 hours declined it, with work commitments offered by 84% of these patients as the reason for deferring attendance. The presence of symptoms did not influence whether patients accepted an early appointment, however the patient's perception of health risk associated with an untreated STI was statistically significantly associated with earlier attendance (P < 0.0001). Increased public education regarding the consequences of untreated STI may therefore improve the acceptance by patients of appointments within 48 hours.