Telephone nursing: calls and caller satisfaction.
To understand the function of telephone nursing, every call to the Medical Call Centre in Stockholm was recorded during one week (n = 2866). Every tenth caller (n = 203) was asked to answer a mailed questionnaire about consultation and satisfaction. The most common reason for calling was symptoms of infection. The predominant outcome was self-care advice (49%). In the mailed questionnaire 85% of respondents stated that they had followed the advice and 95% were satisfied with their consultation. Compared to earlier studies of calls to health-care centres and accident and emergency departments, a larger proportion of the callers were advised to see a physician. The Call Centre we examined proved to be more inclined to give self-care advice than other health-care settings.
Wahlberg
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Department of Medicine Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. anna.carin.wahlberg@medks.ki.se
Wredling
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D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002648:Child; D003376:Counseling / Q000592:standards*; D016529:Emergency Nursing / Q000592:standards*; D005260:Female; D015277:Hotlines / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D015397:Program Evaluation; D012648:Self Care; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013548:Sweden; D014218:Triage / Q000592:standards*