How Norwegian casualty clinics handle contacts related to mental illness: A prospective observational study

Table 1 Initial contacts by substance misuse/mental illness relatedness and by day distribution, urgency and action taken

	Substance misuse/mental illness		Others
	n	%	n	%	p-value
Time of day, n = 28527					<0.001
08.00-15.29	162	22.7	10381	37.3
15.30-22.59	313	43.8	14121	50.8
23.00-07.59	240	33.6	3310	11.9
Priority grade, n = 28387					<0.001
Acute	31	4.6	802	2.9
Urgent	249	36.7	8523	30.8
Not urgent	398	58.7	18384	66.3
Action taken, n = 28417					<0.001
Contact with nurse
Telephone advice	209	30.8	4949	17.8
Consultation	13	1.9	473	1.7
Contact with GP
Telephone advice	78	11.5	2514	9.1
Consultation	314	46.2	17481	63.0
Home visit	9	1.3	235	0.8
Emergency call-out	19	2.8	499	1.8
Other	37	5.4	1587	5.7

Initial patient contacts to triaging nurses in the four casualty clinics (n = 28527) by judged relation to substance misuse or mental illness, and by period of day, assessed priority grade, and type of primary action taken. Group differences were tested with Pearson’s chi-squared test.

ISSN: 1752-4458