PATIENTS' WAITING TIME IN ORTHOPAEDIC OUTPATIENT CLINICS OF LAUTECH TEACHING HOSPITAL, OGBOMOSHO

Abstract

In outpatient clinics in Nigeria, patients often wait a long time before they are called into the consulting rooms to see physicians. This is a problem in both general and specialty outpatient clinics but more so in the former. Studies on patients' waiting time have been conducted in both types of clinics in isolation or in combination. There is, however, no known Nigerian study carried out in an orthopaedic clinic. This study was conducted to estimate the patients' waiting time and identify predictors of access to consultation in the orthopaedic clinics of LAUTECH Teaching Hospital, Osogbo. A cross-sectional study was conducted over three months. Data were collected on patients' waiting time to consultation and possible clinic and patient-related predictors of access to consultation. Consultation rates were estimated with the actuarial method. Cox regression analysis was used to identify predictors of access to consultation. Two hundred and forty one patients comprising 80(33.2%) new patients and 161(66.8%) old patients were seen during 30 clinic days with Wednesday clinic contributing 132(54.8%) patients. The consultation rate within 1 hour of patients' arrival at the clinics was 11%. The median patients' waiting time was 145 minutes. New patients [HR=0.558; 95% CI=0.420-0.742; p<0.001] and patients seen during Wednesday clinic [HR=0.516; 95% CI=0.378-0.703; p<0.001] were less likely to be seen early. Furthermore, for every patient arriving 1 minute earlier than the first doctor to arrive at the clinic, there was a statistically significant decrease in access to consultation by 1.3% [HR=0.987; 95% CI=0.985-0.990; p<0.001]. Patients' waiting time was long in the orthopaedic clinics of L TH, Osogbo. The cumulative proportion of patients seen within I hour of arrival at the clinics was low. New patients and patients seen on Wednesday clinics with the highest patient load had more delay in access to consultation. Time scheduling is recommended to reduce patients' waiting time in the clinics.