Primary care is at the very frontline of the COVID-19 pandemic. The global outbreak on the Norwegian primary care system have previously been demonstrated for the influenza pandemic. Knowledge about primary care management of COVID-19 outbreak, health care utilization and risk factors for severe outcome, can be used to prepare for future outbreaks and improve the patient management.
The primary study objective is to investigate the effect of organization strategies and handling of risk factors for the outcome of patients in primary care during the COVID-19 outbreak.
Secondary objectives are to:
- Identify patient management strategies in primary care and how this is organized in the municipalities in Norway during COVID-19 outbreak.
- Identify patient management strategies in European countries during the COVID-19 outbreak.
- Describe patient contacts to out-of-hours (OOH) services and action taken, and to compare the contacts and action taken between municipalities in Norway during COVID-19 outbreak.
- Examine how the COVID-19 patient utilize the health care system in Norway and identify different trajectories for COVID-19 patient outcome, compared with other patients.
- Investigate risk factors for severe outcomes of COVID-19 among primary care patients in Norway.
Objective 1 and 2 will be answered by questionnaire data from all OOH services in Norway and OOH services in collaborating European countries.
Objective 3 will be answered by data from the Watchtower Registry with information from seven representative OOH services in Norway.
Objective 4 and 5 will be answered by use of linked data from the Norwegian Registry for Primary Health Care (KPR), the Norwegian Patient Registry (NPR), the Norwegian surveillance system for communicable diseases (MSIS), the Norwegian Prescription Database (NorPD), the Norwegian Cause of Death Registry (NCoDR), the Norwegian Intensive Care and Pandemic Registry, and Statistics Norway (SSB). The national registers will be linked and analyzed at the individual level. For objective 4, questionnaire data from all OHH services in Norway will added.
