gms | German Medical Science

Background and international state of the art: Primary Care (PC) plays a key role during the Covid-19 pandemic. For example, the GP's emergency service is used for Covid-19 tests, separate infection consultation hours are implemented and GPs are now supposed to vaccinate in their practices. GP practices are confronted with new organisational and structural difficulties and the crisis probably impacted the perceived importance of the GP.

Research questions and aim: PC in Germany is to be explored from the perspective of GPs with focus on the new priorities in PC during the pandemic (change of tasks, problems, importance and satisfaction with the work as GP, workload and/or overload, etc.), perception of the political guidelines and the interaction with the government, the challenge of ensuring the care of all patients and changing collegiality and interprofessional cooperation. Therefore this study deals with following questions: How do the pandemic measures affect the subjective perception of the GPs? How did health policy measures influence PC quality from the GPs perspective? Has this crisis changed the subjective perception of their role and tasks as well as the self-perceived importance of GPs and PC?

Method: The data were collected by using a quantitative, anonymous online questionnaire as a part of the international Pricov-19 study led by Ghent University (Belgium). GPs throughout Germany were recruited over different academic institutions and the Bavarian GP association. The target size was n=200 practices. A snowball procedure from 02/01/2021 to 03/31/2021 led to a response rate of n=330 practices. Data were analysed by exploratory descriptive analyses as well as regression analyses.

Results: As data cleaning is still ongoing, no detailed results are available at this point. A first descriptive overview showed differences in feeling valuable as a GP and the subjective perception of their role.

Discussion: This study represents a snapshot of PC with its structural and organisational challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic. The focus is primarily on the self-perception of GPs by retrieving how the underlying professional understanding can be classified during this pandemic. Further results will be discussed when further analysis is done.

Practical implications: Since this study is a purely quantitative survey, a discussion (e.g. focus group) of the results with GPs, representatives of politics, the GP's association, etc. is necessary to enhance Practical implications.

Advice for the practice (science and/or healthcare) in one line: Recommendations for PC policies as well as practices are expected.