Missed appointments in perinatal care: response variations in quantitative versus qualitative instruments.

Missed appointments are a significant problem in a healthcare system. They can cause problems for both the practice and the patient. To help a large OB/GYN clinic in South Florida discern typical reasons for missed appointments, a concurrent triangulation design was used in which patient responses on a quantitative mail survey of reasons for missed appointments were compared with those obtained through in-depth interviews. Initial quantitative results indicated appointments were missed due to forgetting, lack of transportation, and lack of childcare. Interview results revealed women had more complicated and emotional reasons behind missed appointments, such as embarrassment, than those identified in the quantitative survey. Interview data revealed that cognitive barriers may be the more likely reason behind missed appointments than structural barriers such as transportation and lack of childcare.