Contacts with out-of-hours primary care for nonurgent problems: patients’ beliefs or deficiencies in healthcare?

Conclusion:
Motives for contacting a GP cooperative are mostly patient-related, but also deficiencies in access to general practice may partly explain medically unnecessary use. Efforts to change the use of GP cooperatives should focus on education of subgroups with an increased likelihood of contact for medically unnecessary problems. Improvement of access to daytime primary care may also decrease use of the GP cooperative.

Source: BMC Family Practice - October 28, 2015 Category: Primary Care Authors: Ellen KeizerMarleen SmitsYvonne PetersLinda HuibersPaul GiesenMichel Wensing Source Type: research