Caller self‐care decisions following teletriage advice

Aim.  To examine caller self‐care decisions following teletriage advice provided by nurses. Background.  The use of teletriage is gaining popularity as one way of enhancing capacity for self‐care. Research from several countries suggests that teletriage reduces the use of other healthcare services without compromising safety. However, there is little or no research related to how often self‐care advice is provided and whether or not callers follow the advice. Design.  A descriptive survey design was used with a random sample of 312 callers who were advised by a teletriage nurse to engage in self‐care. Method.  Callers were randomly selected from all calls to a teletriage service each day of the month for nine months. Data were collected using a researcher‐developed interview guide and analysed using a variety of inferential statistics for forced choice questions and content analysis for open‐ended questions. Results.  The majority of callers who were advised to engage in self‐care reported doing so. Callers with greater self‐efficacy and satisfaction with the nurse interaction were more likely to follow advice to self‐care. All callers would call the teletriage service again for the same or a different issue. Conclusion.  Teletriage callers were confident in the advice provided and were willing to continue to use the service. Relevance to clinical practice.  This study indicates that teletriage programmes are a cost‐effective way of addressing self‐care needs of individuals who might otherwise visit an emergency department.