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Objectives: In primary care out of hours service (OHS-PC), triage nurses ask questions to assign urgency level for medical assessment. A semi-automatic decision tool (the Netherlands Triage Standard, NTS) facilitates triage nurses with key questions, but does not leave much room for paying attention to callers' concerns. We wanted to understand how callers with chest pain formulate their concerns and are helped further during telephone triage., Methods: We conducted a conversation analytic study of 68 triage calls from callers with chest discomfort who contacted OHS-PC of which we selected 35 transcripts in which concerns were raised. We analyzed expressions of concerns and the corresponding triage nurse response., Results: Due to the task-oriented nature of the NTS, callers' concerns were overlooked. For callers, however, discussing concerns was relevant, stressed by the finding that the majority of callers with chest discomfort expressed concerns., Conclusions: Interactional difficulties in concern-related discussions arised directly after expressed concerns if not handled adequately, or during the switch to the counseling phase., Practice Implications: When callers display concerns during telephone triage, we recommend triage nurses to explore them briefly and then return to the sequence of tasks described in the NTS-assisted triage process., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

Objective: To explore the interactional implications of either/or-questions on the interaction between people who call out-of-hours services in primary care (OHS-PC) and triage nurses who use a decision support tool called the 'Netherlands Triage Standard' (NTS) during telephone triage., Methods: A qualitative study of 68 triage conversations at six Dutch OHS-PC. Patients called the OHS-PC with symptoms, e.g. chest discomfort, suggestive of acute coronary syndrome. Using conversation analysis, we identified two categories of multiple-choice either/or-questions that indicated interactional difficulties, shown in hesitation markers within callers' responses., Results: Our analysis shows that interactional difficulties mainly arise when (i) questions are poorly designed by the triage nurse; or (ii) when the caller's complaints are ambiguously presented reflecting patient's difficulties to verbalize them (e.g. "not feeling well")., Conclusion: The way NTS displays key diagnostic options encourages triage nurses to use multiple-choice either/or-questions. More awareness among triage nurses is needed on undesirable implications of either/or-questions on the interaction., Practice Implications: We recommend changing the NTS display of diagnostic options and to use questions with fewer options in order to decrease the chance of formulating ambiguous questions soliciting unclear responses. Furthermore, asking content questions when complaints are ambiguously formulated may specify the presentation of complaints., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors have no conflict of interest to declare., (Copyright © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)