Rationale and study protocol of a regional health panel in Saxony, Germany (GEPASA)

The citizens' perspectives on health care are central to the assessment of the health care situation and to regional development. In Germany, however, strategic goals for health care delivery are planned based on population statistics and partly on regional morbidity. Saxony is a German federal state with high average age and low density of physicians which makes the population perspective on quality of health care especially intersting. No existing panel surveys cover issues related to the perceived quality of health care delivery on a regional level in Germany.

We aim to conduct a longitudinal panel study of the perceived health status and perceived quality of health care of the Saxon citizens as a basis for the systematic derivation of health care goals/measures and target group-specific, regionally suitable prevention measures.

With an anticipated 15% response rate, 15,000 potential participants have to be contacted to achieve a calculated sample size of about 2,250 participants. The questionnaire will be circulated every other year with the option for adaptations depending on insights of each panel wave. The study protocol was approved by the local ethics committee of the Technische Universität Dresden, Germany (ethical approval code BO-EK-320072022) and has been registered at the German Clinical Trials Register as the German WHO primary registry (study registration number DRKS00031229).

The results are intended to identify gaps in health care and to develop patient-centered health care goals for the region together with stakeholders in Saxon health care planning. At the same time, longitudinal data allow mapping of perceived health status and perceived health care trends.