Statistical and further methods for primary and secondary outcomes
REGRESSION, SECONDARY
Statistical analyses of the independent evaluation take place as a comparison between intervention and control groups. Poisson regression will be used for both the primary and secondary endpoints. Adjustments are made for relevant confounders but not for matching variables. APN practices in the intervention group are not considered clusters because a comparable cluster variable is not available for the control group.Users of the new form of care (patients, participating primary care physicians, and APNs) will be interviewed in qualitative interviews. The interviews will take place at the end of the intervention period to reflect the experiences made. Additionally, primary care physicians will be interviewed at the beginning of the project to map expectations of the new form of care. It can be assumed that a theoretical saturation – i.e., the point at which new interviews no longer provide additional information – will be reached with Cost analysis from the social health insurance perspective will be performed to evaluate potential savings. Costs will be compared between the intervention and the control group. Total cost analysis and cost analysis within subgroups will be carried out to identify areas with the highest costs or cost savings. These subgroups will be identified through the primary and secondary endpoints. Data for the health economic analysis will be obtained from the participating health insurance. Intangible or nonmedical costs will not be analysed since these data are not available in the insurance dataset.In the internal evaluation, descriptive and analytical statistical methods are used. The patient’s situation at the beginning and at the end of the APN intervention and the nursing process will be described by statistical indicators such as percentual distribution, mean and standard deviation or median and quartile deviation. Depending on the kind of data and on its distribution, parametric or nonparametric statistical analyses will be conducted (e.g., variance analysis, t test, Mann-Whitney U test or Wilcoxon test).