Abstract
Background Health Services Research (HSR) is a growing field in Germany,
in which Organisational Health Services Research (OHSR) has emerged as a
subfield. The aim of this scoping review was to provide an overview of the field
of OHSR within HSR in Germany and to map systematically original contributions
by describing the organisational setting, the research design, the research
objectives and the theoretical underpinning.
Methods A scoping review examined published abstracts from the 19th German
Conference on Health Services Research 2020. Abstracts were included if (1)
health care organisations, subunits or organisational processes were mentioned
as research objects, and (2) if at least one out of five research perspectives
from a recent German definition of OHSR was addressed. After intensive pilot
screenings within a group of nine researchers, all abstracts were screened
independently in three review teams with three researchers each, and data from
included abstracts were extracted using content analysis based on a
self-developed detailed coding scheme.
Results Out of n=468 identified abstracts in German (84%) or English (16%)
language, n=138 (29.5%) abstracts were included. The majority of included
abstracts addressed acute care in hospitals (34.8%), reported results from
observational studies (59.4%) and collected primary data (69.6%). There was a
slightly higher use of quantitative (32.6%) than qualitative (24.6%) research
methods with a considerable number of studies using more than one method
(31.9%). An explicit reference to theory was made in 7.2% and 17.4% used the
term ‘organisation’ or related terms explicitly in their abstract.
Conclusion This review provides a systematic but preliminary overview of
the scope to which HSR in Germany addresses OHSR. The organisational perspective
is considered extensively in HSR abstracts, but mostly implicitly. The research
is reported largely free of theory which can reduce their explanatory power.
Therefore, a research agenda, more awareness as well as education and better
conceptualisation of OHSR topics within German HSR are needed.
Keywords
Health Services Research - Organisation studies - Health Care - Organisational Behaviour in Health Care - Organisational Health Services Research
