Table 2.

Responses to 15 risk items (N = 265 nurses)

Items groups by original concepts of risk	Strongly agree	Agree	Neither	Disagree	Strongly Disagree	N = 100%
Risk tolerance in clinical decision-making
1. When in doubt it is preferable to refer to a service than to wait and see	9%	47%	20%	24%	1%	262
2. An NHS 24 nurse must prefer the certain to the uncertain	7%	32%	29%	29%	2%	253
3. An NHS 24 nurse must not take any risks with physical illness	27%	47%	9%	17%	0%	262
4. For physical complaints an NHS 24 nurse should do everything possible to establish the cause of a complaint	16%	46%	12%	23%	2%	258
5. As an NHS 24 nurse you must always be aware that each complaint might be the beginning of a serious illness	13%	50%	14%	20%	3%	262
Competing expertise of nurse and computer
6. I prefer to use a clinical algorithm than to assess calls on my own	6%	27%	26%	38%	4%	263
7. It is best to avoid overriding clinical algorithms unless absolutely necessary	2%	19%	17%	52%	10%	263
8. The most important thing is to follow the agreed algorithms	<1%	8%	22%	56%	14%	262
9. I often feel I know better than the clinical assessment system	3%	22%	40%	31%	3%	260
10. Intuition or gut reaction plays an important role in my clinical decision making	15%	62%	13%	8%	1%	265
11. I have strong views on where particular patients should be advised to go	5%	40%	38%	16%	1%	263
Competing risks between missing illnesses and overloading services
12. It is important not to overload busy services	24%	51%	13%	11%	1%	261
13. To be safe, it is better to send 100 patients to a service unnecessarily than to leave one at home who needs care	1%	12%	19%	57%	11%	263
14. I feel that nurses in NHS 24 tend to send more patients to services than is really necessary	5%	32%	24%	35%	3%	262
General
15. I tend to be quite a cautious person	7%	42%	29%	22%	<1%	261