Key message

The Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services and the National Centre for Emergency Primary Health Care conducted in spring 2008 a survey among patients, carers and guardians who had been in contact with the out-of-hours services in Arendal, Kvam and Tromsø. 
The study was a pilot study where the main goal was to create a valid and reliable questionnaire and data collection method that can be used in both local and national surveys to measure user reported experiences with the out-of-hours services in Norway. 
The pilot study included all patients that had contacted any of three casualty clinics in the survey period. The survey included patients that had had telephone contact and/or a consultation with the casualty clinic, and/or had had a home visit from a doctor. 
  
Factor analysis resulted in four main areas of contact with the out-of-hours service: 
- Telephone contact 
- Doctor contact 
- Nurse contact 
- Organization

In general, patients, guardians and carers gave positive assessments of the casualty clinics. Average scores on the four main areas are shown on a scale from 0 to 100, where 0 is the worst and 100 the best experience. 
The results show that there is little variation between the four areas. Organization gets a slightly lower average score than the other three areas at the three casualty clinics. Patients, guardians and carers gave generally positive feedback to the clinics also on the individual questions that are not included in one of the four main areas. 

Summary