[Medical rehabilitation by general practitioners in patients with chronic mental disorders]

Rehabilitation medicine is the medical specialty for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of chronic disorders. This is especially relevant in mental disorders. Treatment of chronic disorders requires a complex and multidisciplinary long-term-treatment which is regularly done by general practitioners. However, concepts for rehabilitation-medicine in outpatient settings are until now by and large insufficient.

40 general practitioners were asked to give an estimate on how many patients with chronic psychological disorders were among their patients.Next, 1 451 patients between 18 and 60 years filled in the WHO-5 wellbeing-rating, the IMET scale on participation disorders, the Burvill scale on multimorbidity and answered questions on their mental and work status.

The general practitioners estimated that on average 41,9% (SD=18,2; Range 15-90%) were suffering from chronic mental disorders. 46,5% of the patients said that they suffered from mental problems, 38,3% had mental problems longer than 6 months, i. e., chronic, and in 26,9% even persistent. 29,7% of the patients suffered from chronic mental problems with relevant participation disorders.

Patients with chronic mental disorders and participation problems are frequent in general practice. Rehabilitation medicine is an important part the daily activities of general practitioners, including diagnosis, treatment, treatment coordination, and sociomedical interventions like sick leave certificates, or initiating inpatient rehabilitation. General practitioners should get more scientific attention when concepts of rehabilitation are discussed.