Investigated the variability of patients' attendance rates at a Saudi Arabian health center and identified any association with the length and content of consultations. 902 patients participated. There was an uneven patient attendance rate during the working hours of the study week with 10.16 consultations per doctor per hour in the evening compared with 5.58 in the morning. By international standards, the average consultation time was short (5.09 min). Contrary to what was expected, the proportion of patients who had long consultation times (>10 min) or were offered health education did not increase during the light work periods. Long compared with short consultations were more likely to include health education issues but did not differ significantly in the rate of prescription, investigation, or referral. The authors suggest spreading the work evenly and performing assessment and audit studies to encourage longer consultations.