Chronic-disease patients and their use of Out-Of-Hours primary healthcare: a cross-sectional study

Table 3. Telephonecalls1 from patients with chronic disease2 and from other patients according to reason for encounter3
Heart disease
(N=156) / Lung disease
(N=627) / Diabetes
(N=607) / Psychiatric disease
(N=219) / Cancer
(N=597) / 2+ diagnoses
(N=403) / Remaining population
(N=3,557)
New health problem
(n (%)) / n=120
(76.9) / n=455
(72.6) / n=451
(74.3) / n=147
(67.1) / n=458
(76.7) / n=293
(72.7) / n=3,143
(88.4)
Telephone cons. / 44 / (36.7) / 207 / (45.5) / 199 / (44.0) / 84 / (57.1) / 209 / (45.6) / 128 / (43.7) / 1,663 / (52.9)
Referral to OOH face-to-face encounter / 53 / (44.2) / 199 / (43.7) / 196 / (43.5) / 49 / (33.3) / 208 / (45.4) / 129 / (44.0) / 1,223 / (38.9)
Referral to hospital/ED / 16 / (13.3) / 23 / (5.1) / 30 / (6.7) / 5 / (3.4) / 21 / (4.6) / 20 / (6.8) / 92 / (2.9)
Other 4 / 7 / (5.8) / 26 / (5.7) / 26 / (5.8) / 9 / (6.1) / 20 / (4.4) / 16 / (5.5) / 165 / (5.3)
Total / 120 / (100.0) / 455 / (100.0) / 451 / (100.0) / 147 / (100.0) / 458 / (100.0) / 293 / (100.0) / 3,143 / (100.0)
Exacerbation of a chronic disease
(n (%)) / n=36
(22.5) / n=172
(27.4) / n=138
(25.7) / n=72
(32.9) / n=139
(23.3) / n=110
(27.3) / n=414
(11.6)
Telephone cons. / 15 / (41.7) / 59 / (34.3) / 71 / (45.5) / 42 / (58.3) / 55 / (39.6) / 44 / (40.0) / 222 / (53.6)
Referral to OOH face-to-face encounter / 18 / (49.9) / 104 / (60.4) / 76 / (47.7) / 24 / (33.3) / 74 / (53.2) / 59 / (53.6) / 169 / (40.8)
Referral to hospital/ED / 1 / (2.8) / 7 / (4.1) / 3 / (1.9) / 3 / (4.2) / 6 / (4.3) / 2 / (1.8) / 10 / (2.4)
Other5 / 2 / (5.6) / 2 / (1.2) / 6 / (3.9) / 3 / (4.2) / 4 / (2.9) / 5 / (4.6) / 13 / (3.1)
Total / 36 / 100.0 / 172 / (100.0) / 156 / (100.0 / 72 / (100.0) / 139 / (100.0 / 110 / (100.0) / 414 / (100.0)
1 Telephone consultations and telephone referrals. 2 Sum of contacts for diagnostic groups exceeds actual number of contacts for due to multi-morbidity. 3 A total number of 4,986 unique patients. 4Enquiries, etc. 5Contact to primary care, nursing homes, police, etc.