[Quality assurance in clinical social work: specific interventions for specific problem areas in different psychiatric patient groups?]

Based on the standardized data of 2643 treatment episodes documented over 11 years in a psychiatric hospital, this study investigates the issues, activities, and outcome of social work with 2038 psychiatric inpatients from the perspective of quality assurance. A primary objective was to study how the social workers' interventions relate to the patients' problems also with regard to sociodemographic characteristics and type of disorder of the patient. The social workers' estimation of the outcome was also studied in relation to these variables. Interventions were found to correspond significantly with problems, and were mostly depending on age, sex, and diagnosis. Impaired social functioning, predominantly present in chronic disorders, was the major concern of social work interventions.