[Psychotherapeutic resources in the General Hospital of Vienna. A representative empirical study of psychotherapeutic...

Since 1993 the Austrian Federal-Hospital-Law demands the guarantee of adequate psychotherapeutic and clinical psychological care in Austrian hospitals. The target of the present survey was to explore the extent of realisation of this demand concerning the psychotherapeutic care in the General Hospital of Vienna (AKH). 125 of the 128 employees with psychotherapeutic qualifications were interviewed. The considerable number of psychotherapeutically qualified employees cannot obscure the fact that inadequate structural preconditions impede a satisfying care. These are: most of the interviewed persons have been employed because of other vocational qualifications (medical doctors, psychologists etc.). Therefore they can only use a very limited part of their worktime on psychotherapeutic interventions. Deficits of spatial and temporal resources could be detected as well as unclear vocational characteristics and qualification requirements. These deficits point out the necessity of developing professionally founded organisation structures, which enable well aimed networking and an optimal usage of resources.