[Assisting the assessment of rehabilitation need by a self-administered questionnaire: problems and solutions]

Rehabilitation in Germany is an important sector of the medical system. Rehabilitation need of insurees who claim rehabilitation benefits is assessed by the financially responsible agency (mostly pension funds). Legal regulations allow little time for this decision so insurers aim at making decisions from the records only. Information on the specific case often is however insufficient. Self-administered questionnaires have been employed in the past to remedy that problem. In this article typical problems are illustrated which arise when administering additional questionnaires to assist the assessment, and solutions for these problems are shown. Important questions concern the instruments that should be used, technical problems of computer-aided assessment and processing of the data, and possible legal objections. Also, general problems and limitations of the approach are discussed.