Abstract
The aim of this qualitative study was to investigate the feelings and behaviour of patients requesting out of hours visits on hearing pre-recorded answerphone messages. Actual messages which had been recorded were classified by a group of four people. Examples of each type of message were then played to a second group, of six people, who expressed their feelings about the varying messages. A third group, of 10 people, was asked to invent hypothetical emergency situations of increasing severity. For each of the emergency situations their proposed actions on hearing the different types of answerphone message were recorded. The results showed that people preferred short messages telling them what to do in an emergency and the time of the next surgery. They also felt that the message should be recorded by a doctor and not a receptionist and be delivered in a 'neutral' tone. Proposed actions were not influenced by the content of the message or the person recording the message. The most important factor in deciding which action to take was the tone of the message. A 'strict' rather than a 'neutral' tone tended to discourage patients from calling out their doctor and was more likely to lead to inappropriate responses. It is suggested that answerphone messages recorded by the doctor, stating what to do in an emergency and the time of the next surgery, delivered in a neutral rather than a strict tone, will lead to the most appropriate responses from patients.
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Selected References
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