[Foreign patients in psychosomatic ambulatory care]

To investigate differences between the complaints of foreign and of German patients who presented at our psychosomatic outpatient department, we documented relevant social data and the results of all diagnostic interviews conducted in 1990. Of the 608 patients (100%), 542 (89.1%) were German and 66 (10.9%) of other nationalities. Foreign patients more often lived in families and more often were unemployed. They reported a higher rate of functional disturbances with a marked difference between males and females. Mental symptoms were significant rarer in foreign males. Psychoanalytic or psychodynamic treatment was more frequently recommended to German patients. Especially females of other nationalities were frequently recommended outpatient psychiatric treatment (24%) or given no treatment recommendation at all (22%). In the last section, treatment recommendations and prognostic evaluations will be discussed, taking into account the possibility of cultural subjectivity on the part of the advisers.