Background:

In Portugal, patients visit the emergency department for non-urgent situations that could be solved in other health care settings.

Objective:

To identify primary care nurses’ perceptions of the reasons, difficulties, and preventive strategies regarding the use of the emergency department by non-urgent patients.

Methodology:

An exploratory, descriptive, and qualitative study was conducted with a sample of 14 primary care nurses. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, and content analysis methods were used.

Results:

The following strategies were identified to minimize the problem - educating citizens about best practices in accessing primary health care and the emergency department, prior patient assessment before resorting to the emergency department, better collaboration between levels of care, centering care on the citizen, promoting accessibility to primary health care, developing digital technologies, taking responsibility in the health/disease process, identifying non-urgent patients in the emergency department and patients not using primary care services, and combating loneliness among older people.

Conclusion:

These results can be used to implement strategies that minimize this problem.

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