Is it a matter of urgency? A survey of assessments by walk-in patients and doctors of the urgency level of their encounters at a general emergency outpatient clinic in Oslo, Norway

Table 2 Patients’ and doctors’ assessments of urgency level for the consultation and agreement between their assessments

			Nordic countries	Western Europe, North America, Oceania	Eastern Europe	Asia including Turkey	Africa	Latin America
	Norwegians	Immigrants^a	Nordic countries	Western Europe, North America, Oceania	Eastern Europe	Asia including Turkey	Africa	Latin America
	n = 867	n = 620	n = 118	n = 38	n = 101	n = 196	n = 145	n = 22
	%	%	%	%	%	%	%	%
Assessment by patients of urgency level
Less than one hour	17.5	40.2	16.1	23.7	48.5	43.4	54.5	36.4
Within a few hours	54.0	43.2	44.1	47.4	39.6	46.9	38.6	45.5
Non-urgent	28.5	16.6	39.8	28.9	11.9	9.7	6.9	18.2
Assessment by doctors of urgency level
Less than one hour	1.6	1.9	0.8	5.3	2.0	2.0	1.4	4.5
Within a few hours	36.8	29.7	28.0	31.6	29.7	35.7	21.4	36.4
Non-urgent	61.6	68.4	71.2	63.2	68.3	62.2	77.2	59.1
Agreement using a Kendall tau-b coefficient	0.296**	0.129**	0.222*	−0.120	0.127	0.195*	0.090	0.196

^aIncluding both first- and second-generation immigrants, **p < 0.05, ** p < 0.001
Missing pair of observations: Total; n = 334 (18.3 %)

ISSN: 1471-227X