[Social medical cooperation after discharge from the hospital]

This article accounts for how general practitioners and a group of neuromedical patients experience cooperation with hospital, social workers and the social authorities after discharge from hospital and their own wishes on this subject. The investigation reveals that communication is not optimal and that it should be intensified. The frequency of contact between the general practitioner and the patients is considerable and half of the patients desire follow-up treatment by the general practitioners. The majority of the general practitioners are willing to undertake follow-up treatment. The majority of the patients want their own general practitioner to be involved in solution of the social problems and the majority of the general practitioners want to be told by the social worker attached to the department about the problems which neuromedical patients may encounter on discharge from hospital. Less than half of the letters of discharge are sent to the patient's general practitioner within two weeks of discharge. By and large, the content of the letters of discharge is satisfactory with the exception about the information given to the patients. Although the patient clientele has serious social problems, cooperation between the general practitioner and the social authorities is defective. The general practitioners emphasize lack of special knowledge and defective understanding of the problems which neuromedical patients experience and defective interest in suggestions made by general practitioners to persons in the social administration. More than one third of the general practitioners would prefer cooperation with the social worker from the department during the follow-up period.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)