This dataset focuses on the issue of whether or not people showed up for their appointment and compiles data from approximately 100,000 medical appointments in Brazil. Each row contains a number of patient-related characteristics. This project is focused on answering the following questions;
- What are the percentages of patients who showed up and those who did not ?
- Which gender shows up for appoinment the most?
- Do patients with hadicap show up or not and what is their show up rate as compared with patients without handicap?
- Do alcoholic patients show up for their medical appointments not and what is their show up rate as compared with patients who are not alcoholic?
- Do Diabetic patients show up for medical appointments and what is their show up rate as compared with patients without Diabetes?
- Do Scholarship holding patients show up for medical appointments and what is their show up rate as compared with patients who are not on scholarship?
- Do patients who receive SMS show up for medical appointments and what are their show up rate as compared with patients who do not receive SMS?
- Do patients who have Hypertension show up for medical appointmentsand what are their show up rates compared with patients who do not have Hypertension?
- The Seniors and the youth who is more concern about their health?
- What are the correlation between relevant variables?
With regards to the percentage of patients who showed up after booking appointments, it was found out that approximately 80% showed for the appointment and 20% do not show for the appointment.
It was also found out that majority of patients show up for medical appointments with females being a larger constituent(65%) of the majority. However, the rate of show up for both males and females for appointments is the same(80% show up rate).
Also with the question of the showing up potential of Handicap patients, irrespective of the level of Handicap, majority of Handicap patients show up for their appointment. Generally, Handicap patients have a high show up rate of 82% for medical appointment compared to non-handicap patients whose show up rate is 80%. Level 1 who are extremely less handicap have a show up rate of 82% and Handicap level 3 and level 4 have a show up rate of 77% and 67% respectively.
Concerning alcoholic patients show up potential, alcoholics have approximately 80% show up rate which is the same as the show up rates for non-alcoholic patients.
In addition, diabetic patients show up potential is relatively high approximately 82% which is higher than that of non-diabetic patients (80%).
Sholarship holders rather show a low potential od showing up of 76% showed and 24% as against 80% of non-scholarship holders.
Also, sms reminders results in 72% show up rate as against 83% show up rate for those who did not receive sms.
Hypertension Patients have a high show up rate of 83% as against 79% showed up rate show up rate for Patients without Hypertension.
With regards to age group, despite seniors (age 65 and above) having a higher number of Handicap, they tend to have the highest show up rate of 84%. Youth(age 15 to 24) on the other hand though having a relatively fair number of them being handicap, tend to have the lowest show up rate of 76% among all the age groups. Generally, seniors are mostly concern about their health issues than youth.
Finally, in terms of which variables are correlated, with exception of Age and Hypertension that has a moderate correlation of 0.5 and Diabetes and Hypertension with a fairly moderate correlation of 0.43, all other variable pairs do not have a correlation. Even with these variables a scatter plot shows the correlated values obtained are misleading since no prominent linear trend was established.
In summary, Hypertention, Diabetic,Alcoholic and Handicap patients have relatively high show up rates. Females tend to visit the hosptital frequently than men, however both genders have equal show up rates. Also despite seniors exhibiting some level of Handicap, they tend to show up more often for their medical appointments as compared to youth.
No statistical test were conducted hence we cannot conclude that this variables are the actual cause of whether a patient showed up or not.
The data only included a one or two times patients information which does not really reflect if patients showed or did not show up due to certain circumstances or establish patients attendance behaviour.
This dataset was obtained for only a particular year and months, there is no past data to find out whether upon introducction of sms reminders show up rate increased or decreased over the years.
These findings are solely based on this particular dataset of a particular geographical area hence cannot be generalised for all geographical areas.
This analysis did not cover the influence of Hospital Location and the influence of appointment day, scheduled day including wether number of days elasped since patient booked appointment and also wether patient was receiving quality healthcare services and wether patients condition was improving or detoriating after each visit. Further research needs to be conducted in thes areas.