RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Self-rated worry in acute care telephone triage: a mixed-methods study JF British Journal of General Practice JO Br J Gen Pract FD British Journal of General Practice SP e197 OP e203 DO 10.3399/bjgp18X695021 VO 68 IS 668 A1 Hejdi Gamst-Jensen A1 Linda Huibers A1 Kristoffer Pedersen A1 Erika F Christensen A1 Annette K Ersbøll A1 Freddy K Lippert A1 Ingrid Egerod YR 2018 UL http://bjgp.org/content/68/668/e197.abstract AB Background Telephone triage is used to assess acute illness or injury. Clinical decision making is often assisted by triage tools that lack callers’ perspectives. This study analysed callers’ perception of urgency, defined as degree of worry in acute care telephone calls.Aim To explore the caller’s ability to quantify their degree of worry, the association between degree of worry and variables related to the caller, the effect of degree of worry on triage outcome, and the thematic content of the caller’s worry.Design and setting A mixed-methods study with simultaneous convergent design combining descriptive statistics and thematic analysis of 180 calls to a Danish out-of-hours service.Method The following quantitative data were measured: age of caller, sex, reason for encounter, symptom duration, triage outcome, and degree of worry (rated from 1 = minimally worried to 5 = extremely worried). Qualitative data consisted of audio-recorded telephone calls.Results Most callers (170 out of 180) were able to scale their worry when contacting the out-of-hours service (median = 3, interquartile range = 2–4, mean = 2.76). Degree of worry was associated with female sex (odds ratio [OR] 1.98, 95% CI = 1.13 to 3.45) and symptom duration (>24 hours: OR 2.01, 95% CI = 1.13 to 3.45) (reference <5 hours), but not with age or reason for encounter. A high degree of worry significantly increased the chance of being triaged to a face-to-face consultation. The thematic content of worry varied from emotions of feeling bothered to feeling distressed. Callers provided more contextual information when asked about their degree of worry.Conclusion Callers were able to rate their degree of worry. The degree of worry scale is feasible for larger-scale studies if incorporating a patient-centred approach in out-of-hours telephone triage.