Home visits in primary care: contents and organisation in daily practice. Study protocol of a cross-sectional study

Karen Voigt; Stefan Bojanowski; Stephanie Taché; Roger Voigt; Antje Bergmann

doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2015-008209

Home visits in primary care: contents and organisation in daily practice. Study protocol of a cross-sectional study

BMJ Open. 2016 Feb 26;6(2):e008209. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2015-008209.

Authors

Karen Voigt¹, Stefan Bojanowski¹, Stephanie Taché², Roger Voigt³, Antje Bergmann¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of General Practice/Medical Clinic III, Faculty of Medicine, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany.
² Department of General Practice/Medical Clinic III, Faculty of Medicine, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany Department of Family and Community Medicine, University California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA.
³ General practitioner in a group practice in Oderwitz/Saxony, Oderwitz, Germany.

Abstract

Introduction: Medical care of homebound patients by home visits is an integral part of primary care in Germany and other industrialised countries. Owing to the sociodemography and changes in the health system, the need for home visits is projected to increase rather than decrease. Our study will provide information on content and organisation of home visits. This evidence is needed to assure sufficient medical care for homebound patients. Germany is one of the European nations with highest proportions of elderly age groups, so that our results will be indicative for other European countries with comparable organisation of primary care.

Methods and analysis: This cross-sectional study is conducted over a period of 12 months. All home visits of each participating family practice are documented within a 1-week time period. The anonymous documentation of home visits is carried out by the family practitioner or medical assistant conducting the home visit. All Saxon Family practitioners received study information and were personally invited to participate in our study. Almost 303 (of 2677) family practitioners expressed their interest to participate to generate data on the content and organisational characteristics of home visits. Data analysis of more than 4000 home visits will take into account several patient-related and system-related parameters. Descriptive and multivariate analysis will be carried out by using non-parametric methods. Regarding expected cluster structure of the data, a multilevel analysis will be necessary.

Ethics and dissemination: The study received ethical approval by the Ethical Commission of the TU Dresden and adheres to the Declaration of Helsinki. Considering that the results of our project will be indicative for ageing societies with comparable organisation of primary care, we will publish them in international open access journals concerned with healthcare and primary care research and disseminate them by a final symposium and at national/international scientific events.

Keywords: PRIMARY CARE; cross sectional study; delegation; home visits; reasons for encounter.

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Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Cross-Sectional Studies
House Calls*
Humans
Practice Patterns, Physicians'
Primary Health Care / methods*
Research Design*