Self-referrals in the emergency department: reasons why patients attend the emergency department without consulting a general practitioner first—a questionnaire study

Table 4 Answers to the question why self-referred patients directly attended the ED

Multiple choice answer	Number (%)	Appropriate (%)	Inappropriate (%)	P value
Patients that answered this question	1561	908 (58.2)	653 (41.8)
Takes less time	437 (28.0)	250 (27.5)	187 (28.6)	0.632
Investigations necessary	372 (23.8)	246 (27.1)	126 (19.3)	<0.001
Symptoms too severe	355 (22.7)	227 (25.0)	128 (19.6)	0.012
Not from the region	258 (16.5)	131 (14.4)	127 (19.4)	0.008
GP not available	145 (9.3)	83 (9.1)	62 (9.5)	0.812
GP could/would not see me	130 (8.3)	65 (7.2)	65 (10.0)	0.049*
No confidence in GP	47 (3.0)	30 (3.3)	17 (2.6)	0.424
No GP	20 (1.3)	8 (0.9)	12 (1.8)	0.097

Patients could choose more than one answer
Number (%) number of patients that chose this answer (percentage), Appropriate (%) number of patients that chose this answer, whose visit was considered appropriate (percentage of patients with an appropriate visit that chose this answer), Inappropriate (%) number of patients that chose this answer, whose visit was considered inappropriate (percentage of patients with an inappropriate visit that chose this answer)
The data in italics represent signifant P-values *After applying the Benjamini-Hochberg method, this P value is no longer significant

ISSN: 1865-1380