Participants
All new adult otology referrals to our unit, sampled between March 2021
and May 2021, were included. Patients were allocated to a face-to-face
or a telephone clinic by the bookings office or secretarial team at our
unit, based on clinic availability, unless a referral had been
specifically triaged by the consultant in charge. Patients were excluded
if seen as follow-ups, referred with a non-otological complaint or
referred to a specialist clinic (e.g. cochlear implant clinic). The
retrospective methodology meant management decisions were not influenced
by the study. Sample size was calculated based on a 95% confidence
interval and a power of 80%. In the absence of previous literature, it
was the authors’ consensus that a primary outcome difference of 25%
between groups should be detected and therefore the minimum sample size
was 55 patients in each group.