Deinstitutionalization of psychiatric patients in central Europe

The central European countries Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and Luxemburg are confronted with a variety of individual problems concerning health care. After an analysis of problems which are shared by all the countries, these individual aspects are analyzed. In Germany there has been a rapid structural change of psychiatric care in the last 30 years. Although there was a broad movement to deinstitutionalize patients with chronic psychiatric disorders who need long-term care, there are still too many psychiatric beds in large psychiatric hospitals and still missing psychiatric departments in general hospitals in some areas. In Austria the process of deinstitutionalization has been delayed but a general survey of the health care system by the government led to an acceleration of this process in recent years. Due to historical reasons, the mental health care system in Switzerland is not easily comparable with the ones in the other two countries. Deinstitutionalization mainly means reduction of beds in the existing psychiatric hospitals rather than a structural change with a conversion to psychiatric departments in general hospitals. Luxemborg is a good example of the fact that economical factors are not the only aspects influencing development in psychiatric care. Psychiatric care is not community based, centralized, separated from medical care, and the supply system concerning complementary outpatients institutions is underrepresented. Thus, in all the countries the process of deinstitutionalization has still not come to a satisfying level. This is not only due to the economically difficult situation in the recent past. A change can only be expected when the opinions about modern principles of psychiatric care receive more weight in general society and with their political representatives.