title: Home visits in primary care: contents and organisation in daily practice. Study protocol of a cross-sectional study.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  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
  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.
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  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.
authors.affiliation: Department of General Practice/Medical Clinic III, Faculty of Medicine, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Karen
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Voigt
authors.affiliation: Department of General Practice/Medical Clinic III, Faculty of Medicine, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bojanowski
authors.affiliation: 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.
authors.forename: Stephanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Taché
authors.affiliation: General practitioner in a group practice in Oderwitz/Saxony, Oderwitz, Germany.
authors.forename: Roger
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Voigt
authors.affiliation: Department of General Practice/Medical Clinic III, Faculty of Medicine, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany.
authors.forename: Antje
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bergmann
mesh_terms: D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D006792:House Calls; D006801:Humans; D010818:Practice Patterns, Physicians'; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000379:methods*; D012107:Research Design
keywords: PRIMARY CARE; cross sectional study; delegation; home visits; reasons for encounter