[Psychotherapy in general practice of physicians and psychologists]

This study tries to reveal the epidemiology of outpatient psychotherapy in practices in a defined northern area of Germany (Schleswig-Holstein, 2.66 Mill. inhabitants) by a postal questioning of all medical (n = 242) and psychological (n = 45) psychotherapists registered. Psychotherapy was defined as enclosing at least 10 meetings. 54.7% of the questionnaires were returned to us. An analysis on this database showed that 8310 adult patients were psychotherapeutically treated within one year (0.3% of the population). On the base of different epidemiological studies the treatment prevalence widely differed from 3.9 to 31.9%. The majority of diagnoses were reactive disorders or neuroses (52.8%) and psychosomatic disorders (24.3%). Patients out of middle and upper social classes, with higher educational levels, and from urban areas (> 100 000 inhabitants) were more likely to be treated than others. This trend was significantly more apparent in psychologists than in physicians.