Table 4.
Baseline description of study sample by patient and call characteristics
| Triage professional | GP (n=423) | Nurse (n=430) | Physician (n=441) | |
| Patient characteristics | ||||
| Sex, % (n)* | Male | 42.8 (181) | 37.9 (163) | 47.2 (208) |
| Female | 57.2 (242) | 62.1 (267) | 52.8 (233) | |
| Age in years, % (n) | 0–4 | 20.3 (86) | 23.6 (101) | 21.9 (96) |
| 5–17 | 15.8 (67) | 13.3 (57) | 14.8 (65) | |
| 18–39 | 29.6 (125) | 31.5 (135) | 30.6 (134) | |
| 40–64 | 21.8 (92) | 20.6 (88) | 20.1 (88) | |
| ≥65 | 12.5 (53) | 11.0 (47) | 12.6 (55) | |
| Call characteristics | ||||
| Time of call†, % (n) | Weekend | 51.6 (218) | 51.2 (220) | 50.3 (222) |
| Not weekend | 48.5 (205) | 48.8 (210) | 49.7 (219 | |
| Day | 22.2 (94) | 22.6 (97) | 21.1 (93) | |
| Evening | 61.5 (260) | 60.9 (262) | 61.5 (271) | |
| Night | 16.3 (69) | 16.5 (71) | 17.5 (77) | |
| Length of call, min and s (95% CI in seconds) * |
Mean | 2 min 57 s (167 to 188) |
4 min 44 s (268 to 300)‡ |
4 min 1 s (227 to 254)‡ |
*Indicates a significant difference (p<0.05) between all three groups of triage professional, using χ2 tests for categorical variables and Kruskal-Wallis for length of call.
†Time of call: weekend=Friday 16:00–Sunday midnight; not weekend=Monday 00:00–Friday 08:00.
‡Significant difference between nurses or physicians compared with the GP reference group (p<0.05) (pairwise) identified using χ2 test and Mann-Whitney U-test.
GP, general practitioner.