Telephone consultations in place of face to face out-patient consultations for patients discharged from hospital following surgery: a systematic review

Table 3 Study results

Study, year	Uppal, 2003[19]; Uppal, 2004[20]		Sittitavornwong, 2005[21]		Susarla, 2011[22]		Mandal, 2004[23]
	Telephone	Face to face	Telephone	Face to face	Telephone	Face to face	Telephone	Home visit	Face to Face
n	75	75	25	23	155	209	100^$	100^$	100^$
Cost outcomes
Total cost of follow-up (£)	3760.88	7958.25	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
Cost per patient (£)	50.15	106.11	-	-	-	-	1 to 2	8.50	-
Patient satisfaction outcomes
Patient satisfaction with follow-up	1.04 (0.50)*^§	0.65 (0.52) *^§	-	-	95.9%^†	-	-	-	-
Proportion reporting ‘very reassured’	-	-	-	-	-	-	69.6%	83.9%	79.5%
Proportion showing good level of understanding	-	-	-	-	-	-	84%	93.1%	87.2%
Patient preference for follow-up method	-	-	73%**	27%**			-	-	-
Satisfaction with length of review	-	-	-	-	-	-	97.2% just right
Compliance with follow-up	83%	93%	83%	77%	97.1%	94.5%	-	-	-
Frequency of complications
Frequency of intra-operative or post-operative complication	-	-			12.9%^#	23.4%^#	-	-	-
on day one			19% (n = 9)**	10% (n = 5)**
at two weeks			10% (n = 5)**	2% (n = 1)**
Incidence of post-operative help	-	-	8% (n = 4)**	6% (n = 3)**			-	-	-

*mean (sd); ^§missing data for 33 patients in the telephone group and 29 patients in the face to face group; ** these data are reported as a proportion of 48 patients;
^† self reported patient satisfaction rate in 82% of patients; ^# after adjusting for differences between the samples, no significant difference was found in complication frequencies (p = 0.7); ^$only 82% of patients completed or partially completed questionnaires; - not reported.

ISSN: 1472-6963