Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To compare use of walk-in clinics by rural and urban family practice patients and to describe patients' perceptions of the quality of care in physicians' offices. DESIGN: Questionnaire completed by patients in family physicians' offices. SETTING: Nine community-based family practices located in rural and urban areas of Alberta. PARTICIPANTS: Patients who had visited their family physicians' offices during April, May, June, or July 1997. Response rate was 89.6% (403 of 450 questionnaires were completed). MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Use of walk-in clinics, patients' perceptions of the quality of care in physicians' offices. RESULTS: Overall, 27.5% of patients (22.2% of rural, 35.5% of urban patients) attended walk-in clinics in the 6 months before visiting their family physicians' offices: 43.3% went during weekdays when their family physicians' offices were open. Significantly more rural (91.1%) than urban (60.7%) patients felt they could contact their doctors during evenings and weekends (P.004). Significantly more urban (67.2%) than rural (33.3%) patients did not call their own physicians before going to walk-in clinics (P.002). Patients who attended walk-in clinics were more likely (P.01) than patients who did not to rate their family physicians' office hours poor to good (27.9% vs 15.6%). CONCLUSIONS: Many patients attending the offices of community-based family physicians in both urban and rural areas of Alberta also attend walk-in clinics. Family practice patients attend walk-in clinics primarily because their own physicians' offices are less convenient.
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