[Inpatient psychosomatic rehabilitation for Turkish migrants: what can be realized, what are the effects?]

A sample of 184 Turkish migrants who had been treated in a department for psychosomatic rehabilitation, were included in a study using retrospective analysis of their clinical documents. Somatoform disorders and depressions predominated among the main diagnoses but somatic diseases and risk factors were frequent as well. Because of insufficient outpatient treatment, diagnostic procedures concerning somatic state often became necessary during the rehabilitation measure, uncovering previously unknown somatic diseases in 16% of the patients. The main focus of the psychotherapy offered to the migrants had been slightly more on unburdening from suffering, also it included more psycho-educational elements, but apart from this the quality and quantity of treatment hardly differed from a sample of German patients. Hence, though based on higher efforts and costs, the psychosomatic rehabilitation offered to the Turkish migrants had been implemented according to current standards. An important effect of inpatient rehabilitation seems to have been the working out of an overall therapeutic concept comprising all psychic and somatic problems. The very poor results in social-medical respects found in the study have with increasing experience been considerably improved in the meantime.