MATERIAL AND METHODS
Study design, participants and setting
The study was designed as a cross-sectional questionnaire evaluation. Data collection took place between 2010 and
2013 in 15 different hospitals in the northern and eastern parts of Germany. Hospital departments were Internal Medicine, Neurology, Surgery, Paediatrics,Anaesthesiology and Gynaecology and Obstetrics. On the basis of information of the German Federal Office of Statistics in 2012, the chosen hospitals are comparable to other German hospitals.The hospitals included in the study had similarities in the following variables: size,number of patients/beds as well as employed medical
staff (eg, residents, junior doctors, nurses).