[Nonpatient-related tasks in psychiatric hospitals : Results of a multicentre survey with real-time validation]

Hospital staff have complained for years that documentation and administrative duties consume a large share of working time. Profession-wide data on clinical psychiatry are scarce.

To quantify time spent on patient-distant tasks in psychiatric hospitals by category and profession, and to cross-check self-reports against a prospective real-time measurement.

Multicentre cross-sectional study at four psychiatric hospitals of the LWL Psychiatry Network Westphalia (three adult psychiatry, one child and adolescent psychiatry). An anonymous questionnaire assessed 27 patient-distant tasks in six categories (n = 287 from five professional groups). An additional prospective day-by-day observation tracked n = 34 employees over 76 working days.

Both methods concurred at the aggregate level at about 61% of working time (~24 h/week, part-time-adjusted) spent on patient-distant tasks. Part-time employees were disproportionately burdened. Largest categories: internal exchange and coordination (27%), internal documentation (24%) and organization of treatment (20%); the most time-consuming single activity was patient-related team meetings (4.2 h/week). Real-time measurement yielded only 10.5% for documentation; informal short conversations emerged as an underestimated time factor.

Patient-distant tasks account for the majority of working time in psychiatric staff. Contrary to public debate, documentation is not the dominant burden; meetings and coordination weigh more heavily. Alongside political deregulation, hospitals should use internal organisational levers.