The acceptability of waiting times for elective general surgery and the appropriateness of prioritising patients

Table 4 Grouped responses on the statements on the acceptability of waiting lists in health care (%, and mean scale scores).

		Patients n = 255	Surgeons n = 99	OPs n = 93	GPs n = 63
Waiting lists are an accepted part of an affordable health care service that is accessible for everyone.	Agree	50^ab	59^a	40^b	59^a
	Disagree	36	31	52	33
Since patients pay premiums for care, they should be given that care without having to wait.	Agree	64^a	37^b	47^c	33^d
	Disagree	21	51	37	60
Having to wait longer than two weeks for treatment is never acceptable.	Agree	43^a	13^b	22^c	16^bc
	Disagree	40	81	68	76
It is acceptable to have waiting lists even in a country as prosperous as the Netherlands.	Agree	44^a	63^bc	57^c	71^b
	Disagree	41	25	36	14
Scale scores for attitude towards the acceptability of waiting lists in health care	Mean* (SD)	-0.18^a (0.90)	0.50^b (0.97)	0.13^c (1.04)	0.65^b (0.81)

Note: Percentages do not add to 100 as response category "neutral" is not shown; the response categories "fully disagree" and "disagree to some extent" are combined into "disagree", and "agree to some extent" and "fully agree" are combined into "agree".
Note 2: The numbers of patients and surgeons do not correspond fully with overall response numbers. This difference is due to missing values on some statements (the number of missing values per statement never exceeded 3).
^a,b,c: Non-corresponding superscripts between groups, indicate a significant difference in the responses (p < 0.05).
*Mean scale scores can range between -2 and 2 with zero indicating a neutral attitude; positive scores indicate a mean positive attitude.

ISSN: 1472-6963