Table 1

Topics and items of the questionnaires

Topics	Items	Item structure	Response options
Questionnaire for documenting home visits
Organisational characteristics of the home visits	Date, starting time	Single answer	Date and time
	Duration of the home visit, driving time	Single answer	In minutes
	Person conducting	Multiple choice	FP, medical assistants with/without qualification, physician assistants, other
	Urgency of the home visit		Emergent—very urgent—less urgent—not urgent
	Person requesting the home visit	Single answer/checklist	FP, patient, ambulant nursing care, neighbour, relatives, hospital, nursing home, police/fire department
Demographic/social characteristics of the patient	Age	Open-ended	Year of birth
	Gender	Single answer	Female/male
	Assessment of social support: ‘patients seems to get good social support’	Likert scale	1=absolutely true to 6=not true
	Supporting persons	Multiple choice	Ambulant nursing care, neighbour, relatives/family, healthcare workers at nursing home, daycare, no social support, others
	Domestic circumstances	Single answer/checklist	Living alone at private home, living with partner or family at private home, assisted living, nursing home
Disease characteristics	Known chronic diseases	Open-ended	–
Disease characteristics	Care level	Single answer/checklist	Level 0 to 3, no or proposed care level, don’t know
Contents of the home visit	Reasons and results for encounter	Open-ended	–
	Performed diagnostics	Multiple choice	No diagnostics, comprehensive or symptom-oriented clinical examination, blood drawing, quick tests, other
	Therapeutic decision	Multiple choice	Consultation of patients or relatives or healthcare workers, wound care, vaccination, prescription of medical and non-medical aids, other
	Decision	Multiple choice	Referral to specialist or hospital, home visit for re-evaluation, revisit by FP or medical assistant, consultation of ambulant nursing care, certificate of incapacity
	Drug administration during home visit	Open-ended	Kind of substance and application
Questionnaire for FP and their practices
Demographic/professional characteristics of the FP	Age	Open-ended	Year of birth
	Gender	Single answer	Female/male
	Kind of employment	Single answer/checklist	Resident, full-time or part-time employed, other
Characteristics of the family practice	Kind of practice	Single answer/checklist	Single practice, group practice, medical care centre, other
	Number of medical assistants and their advanced qualification	Open-ended	Number kind of qualification
	Community size	Single answer/scale	Between <5000 and >100 000 inhabitants
	Number of patients/quarter	Open-ended	Number
	Number of home visits/week	Open-ended	Number
	Proportion of patients >65 years	Open-ended	Number
	Number of nursing home patients/quarter	Open-ended	Number
Organisational characteristics of the home visits	Delegation of home visits to whom	Multiple choice	Medical assistants with or without qualification, physician assistants, nurses, care service, others
Organisational characteristics of the home visits	Organisational rules (eg, fixed days for home visits, collection of requests, visit after each request)	Multiple choice	Fixed days between Monday–Sunday, fixed times between morning–evening, for request, determine particular date after collection of daily requests, others
Questionnaire for medical assistants/nurses
Demographic characteristics of medical assistant	Age	Open-ended	Year of birth
Demographic characteristics of medical assistant	Gender	Single answer	Female/male
Professional characteristics of medical assistant	Highest education level	Single answer/checklist	Secondary school to university of applied sciences
	Vocational qualification	Multiple choice	Medical assistant, nurse, medical technical assistant, no vocational qualification, other
	Advanced/further education; additional qualification	Multiple choice	Chronic care manager, advanced primary care assistants VERAH or AGnES, other
	Years of professional experience	Open-ended	Number
	YEARS of employment in the current family practice	Open-ended	Number
	Regular working hours/week	Open-ended	Number
Characteristics of the family practice	Kind of practice/staff composition	Single answer/checklist	Single practice, group practice, medical care centre, other
	Number of patients/quarter	Open-ended	Number
	Community size	Single answer/scale	Between <5000 and >100 000 inhabitants
	Existing quality management	Single answer/checklist	Yes, no, don’t know
	Number of team meetings/past 12 months	Open-ended	Number
Characteristics of delegated home visits	Three essential tasks within home visits	Open-ended	–
Characteristics of delegated home visits	Duration of the home visit in average	Open-ended	In minutes

FP, family physician.