Identifying Health Disparities and Health Services Gaps by Following Stroke Patients and Their Family Care-givers to Explore Their Needs and Expectations: A Multi-center Longitudinal Study

Background: The meeting point of the patient with the health care system is complicated and traumatic. The patient's autonomy over physical health becomes diminished. The patient and his family need to deal with medicalization geared towards providing evidence-based medical care, while attempting to be cost-efficient. The patient expects comprehensive, holistic care tailored to his/her needs, during hospitalization or in the community.

Objectives: To characterize the patient's and his/her family's needs and expectations from the medical system, following an acute medical event involving hospitalization and community care treatment; to analyze the gaps between these needs and the actual treatment provided.

Working hypotheses: Certain needs and expectations of patients and their families are unrecognized and unmet by the medical system; more deprived population groups can be identified, where the gap between needs and service provided is exceptionally great.

Type of research and methods of data collection: Prospective cohort study. Method(s) of data collection: 800 stroke patients hospitalized at 4 medical centers: Tel Hashomer, Soroka, Asaf-Harofeh, and Naharia, and a close family member (caregiver), will be recruited during one calendar year. These medical centers reflect the heterogeneity of the population, it's ethnic diversity, and the periphery vs. the central areas of the country of Israel. Personal details will be recorded, and informed consent forms signed. The patients will be telephone-interviewed 3-4 months after acute hospitalization, 6-8 months, and after one year, to assess their functionality, coping with bureaucracy, availability and accessibility (financial and cultural), disease management, continuity of treatment, number of caregivers, quality of life, depression, cognitive function, care received by the medical system, "patient at the center" assessment.

Uniqueness and relevance to the National health Insurance Law: Assessment of patient's experience (and his caregivers) in the first year after hospitalization due to stroke, with emphasis on inequality between patients based on socio-economic factors. The assumption is that the gap between expectations and needs of patient and family from the medical system and actual service provided by the system is even bigger among populations who depend more on the system for support.