Prompt letters to reduce non-attendance: applying evidence based practice

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Non-attendance rates in psychiatric outpatient clinics have been a topic of considerable interest. It is measured as an indicator of quality of service provision. Failed attendances add to the cost of care as well as having an adverse impact on patients leading to missing medications, delay in identifying relapses and increasing waiting list time. Recent trials have demonstrated that prompting letters sent to patients led to a decrease in non-attendance rates. We applied this evidence based practice in our community mental health setting to evaluate its impact. METHODS: Using a before and after study design, we sent prompting letters to all patients due to attend outpatient clini..