[The geriatric-psychiatric service in Denmark]

The aim of the study was to give a systematic description of the psycho-geriatric service in Denmark as of January 1990. All psychiatric departments and administrations in the 14 counties and the cities of Copenhagen and Frederiksberg, respectively, received a questionnaire regarding the psycho-geriatric services. 97% of the psychiatric departments and all of the counties/municipalities returned the questionnaire, two county administrations did not, however, complete the questionnaire. There was very great variation in the psychogeriatric services offered not only from county to county but also in individual parts of the same county. Seven counties had no psycho-geriatric department, two of these, however, offered community psychiatric treatment. The definitions of psycho-geriatric patients differed considerably, as some used age as criteria but differed in the age-limit chosen, and others used diagnostic criteria which also differed. The existing service concerning both the institutional and community-based treatment differed thus from county to county and within each individual county. The reason for this may be lack of co-ordination between the individual sectors. In general, there appear to be intentions of increasing the community-psychiatric treatment in particular.