Factors associated with patient absenteeism for scheduled endoscopy

Table 1 Prevalence of patient characteristics among patient’s who were and were not truant for scheduled endoscopic procedure

Factor		Number of patients (n)
		Control group1	No-show	Total patients evaluated
Urgent procedure	No	219	198	417
	Yes	99	50	149
Direct to endoscopy	No	235	187	422
	Yes	81	75	156
Referring doctor	No referral	9	17	26
	GP	293	235	528
	Specialist	19	33	52
Sex	Female	176	152	328
	Male	150	133	283
Time of procedure	7:30-10:00	125	87	212
	10:00-12:30	115	106	221
	12:30-15:00	86	92	178
Type of procedure	Colonoscopy	177	129	306
	EGD	109	107	216
	Flex-sig	40	49	89
Weekday	Monday	53	61	114
	Tuesday	58	65	123
	Wednesday	72	56	128
	Thursday	73	61	134
	Friday	70	42	112
Distance living from hospital	Within 10 miles	201	194	395
	Within 60 miles	106	74	180
	Beyond 60 miles	18	13	31
Previous endoscopy	No	132	104	236
	Yes	184	144	328
New patient	No	153	135	288
	Yes	161	133	294

¹Control group refers to a random sample of patients during the same interval who appeared at their appointment as scheduled; GP: General practitioner; Flex-sig: Flexible sigmoidoscopy.

Table 2 Univariate analysis of patient characteristics and their predictive value for patient absenteeism from scheduled endoscopic procedure

	Comparison	OR	95% CI	P-value
Urgency	Non-urgent vs urgent	1.790	1.211, 2.645	0.0035
Direct to endoscopy	Not direct vs direct	0.859	0.595, 1.242	0.4199
Referring physician	Specialist vs GP	2.165	1.200, 3.906	0.0063
	No referral vs GP	2.355	1.031, 5.379
Age	Increments of 10 years	0.912	0.823, 1.010	0.0757
Sex	Female vs male	0.974	0.708, 1.340	0.8714
Time of procedure	7:30-10:00 vs 12:30-15:00	0.651	0.423, 1.001	0.0835
	10-12:30 vs 12:30-15:00	0.967	0.637, 1.468
Type of procedure	Colonoscopy vs flex-sig	0.741	0.439, 1.250	0.2757
	EGD vs flex-sig	0.964	0.558, 1.667
Weekday	Tues vs Mon	1.000	0.580, 1.723	0.9570
	Wed vs Mon	0.754	0.439, 1.293
	Thurs vs Mon	0.809	0.476, 1.373
	Fri vs Mon	0.493	0.278, 0.873
Region	< 10 mile radius vs < 60 mile radius	1.537	0.685, 3.448	0.1110
	< 60 mile radius vs > 60 mile radius	1.054	0.454, 2.449
Previous endoscopy	Yes vs no	1.039	0.738, 1.464	0.8252
Waiting time	3 mo increments	0.835	0.675, 1.034	0.0980
New patient	No vs yes	1.293	0.921, 1.815	0.1369

Table 3 Multivariate analysis of patient characteristics and their predictive value for patient absenteeism from scheduled endoscopic procedure

	Comparison	OR	95% CI	P-value
Urgency	Non-urgent vs urgent	1.624	1.056, 2.497	0.027
Direct to endoscopy	Not direct vs direct	2.244	1.331, 3.783	0.002
Referring physician	Specialist vs GP	2.763	1.383, 5.519	0.058
	No referral vs GP	1.228	0.321, 4.706	0.666