Appointment Compliance by Patients at UKM Optometry Clinic / Jurnal Sains Kesihatan Malaysia

ABSTRACT

@#Patient’s appointment compliance refers to the willingness and ability of a patient to attend to their scheduled clinicalappointment. Failure to do so have various consequences, especially so for a teaching clinic such as the OptometryClinic, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). The percentage of appoinment compliance at the Optometry Clinic wasanalysed from September to December 2015. Compliance rate was categorised based on clinic type and session, and onpatient’s gender and ethnicity. Attendance compliance was around 60% for the Primary Care Clinic. It increased to 70%for patients with vision problems who where referred to specialty clinics i.e. Low Vision and Paediatric Clinics. Clinicday and session did not influence compliance significanly (p > 0.05). Patient’s gender and ethnicity did not influencecompliance significantly as well but those of Indian ethnicity consistently showed the lowest appointment compliancerates. A protocol should be developed to increase the rate of patients’ appoinment compliance. This would then maximiseproductivity of students and clinic staff and optimise the clinic’s resources. The cost of each clinical session could beinformed to the patients, even when the cost is not borne by them.