[Counseling at the hospital]

In the counselling of patients by the hospital social service, personal assistance and initiation of medical, vocational and social rehabilitation measures are intertwined. Counselling methods, scope, contents and goals are determined by the objective medical facts at hand as well as the subjective needs present in the individual case, and are limited by the structure of the hospital and its responsibility for acute care. Complementary to person- and problem-centered counselling with patients and their relatives as the nucleus of psychosocial coping with illness and disability, the hospital social service cooperates with the whole range of clinical professions involved in the individual case in reintegrating the patient, in particular with the physicians in charge of establishing the indication for rehabilitative measure, as well as with the entire range of rehabilitation carriers, with extra-clinical facilities and services within the health care/social protection system. Evaluation, which would be necessary in view of outcome control and increased effectiveness of the counselling services provided in the hospital, does not occur so far. (Case examples are given to illustrate hospital-based counselling work.)