Table 4.
Comparison of clinical outcomes of patients seen by nurses and general practitioners. Values are numbers (percentages) unless indicated otherwise
| Treatment by
|
Significance | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| General practitioner | Nurse | ||
| Patient's reported health status after two weeks: | |||
| No of respondents | 661 | 672 | |
| Cured | 330 (49.9) | 338 (50.3) | P=0.906 |
| Improved | 216 (32.7) | 220 (32.7) | |
| Same | 100 (15.1) | 92 (13.7) | |
| Worse | 15 (2.3) | 22 (3.3) | |
| Patients reporting return to surgery for same problem | 119/654 (18.2) | 136/666 (20.4) | χ2=0.910, P=0.340 |
| No of visits for patients who returned to surgery: | |||
| No of respondents | 89 | 89 | |
| Mean (SD) No of visits | 2.0 (1.61) | 2.0 (1.75) | t =−0.089, P=0.929, 95% CI difference between means −0.52 to 0.48 |
| Patients reporting attendance at accident and emergency | 13/664 (2.0) | 14/675 (2.1) | χ2<0.00, P>0.999 |
| Patients reporting out of hours calls to general practitioner | 12/664 (1.8) | 6/675 (0.9) | χ2=1.518, P=0.218 |