@article {Shahabe264, author = {Izn Shahab and Ryan Meili}, title = {Examining non-attendance of doctor{\textquoteright}s appointments at a community clinic in Saskatoon}, volume = {65}, number = {6}, pages = {e264--e268}, year = {2019}, publisher = {The College of Family Physicians of Canada}, abstract = {Objective To quantify the degree of non-attendance of medical appointments, as well as to identify the social reasons behind the missed appointments, at an inner-city primary care clinic.Design Retrospective chart review and survey.Setting Inner-city clinic in Saskatoon, Sask, serving a primarily low-income and First Nations population.Participants Patients with appointments in the clinic between January 2016 and June 2016.Main outcome measures Number of non-attended clinic appointments and the reasons for missed appointments.Results Of the 1976 booked appointments during the study period, 487 (24.6\%) appointments were not attended. Among the patients with walk-in appointments, 123 (15.5\%) of them left the clinic before seeing a physician. New patients had a high rate of non-attendance (44.4\% did not show up to appointments). Among those who did not attend an appointment, 19.9\% of them missed more than 1 appointment; 77.8\% of missed appointments were made more than a week in advance of the appointment, and 51.7\% of those who missed an appointment saw a physician at the clinic at a later date (18.5 days later on average). The most common reasons for non-attendance were forgetting the appointment or feeling too sick to attend. Social determinants such as transportation were also found to play a role in non-attendance. Most survey participants stated that a telephone call reminder would aid them in keeping their appointments.Conclusion Non-attendance is a multifactorial issue that causes a considerable waste of resources, limits the provision of preventive care, and negatively affects patient health. As forgetting was found to be a frequent cause of missed appointments, introducing a telephone reminder system might be an affordable and effective first measure to address non-attendance. Factors associated with poverty and other social determinants of health also affect attendance and are more challenging to address.}, issn = {0008-350X}, URL = {https://www.cfp.ca/content/65/6/e264}, eprint = {https://www.cfp.ca/content/65/6/e264.full.pdf}, journal = {Canadian Family Physician} }