FOREIGN PSYCHIATRIC-PATIENTS TREATED AT A PSYCHIATRIC UNIVERSITY CLINIC PROVIDING LOCAL PSYCHIATRIC-SERVICE

About one third (29.5 %) of the population living within the area of F rankfurt, for which the psychiatric university clinic provides psychia tric service, are foreigners. For the better understanding of our fore ign psychiatric inpatients treated in our clinic in in 1992, the diagn ostic spectrum and the nationalities of these patients were analysed. More than half of them (58 %) were raised up in former Yugoslavia, Tur key, Italy, Poland and Marocco. The other foreign patients came from 3 6 different countries. The diagnostic spectrum comparing german and fo reign patients showed marked differences. Paranoid schizophrenia was m ore common in foreigners (31.5 %) compared with german patients (16.8 %), as well as female foreigners were admitted to the clinic because o f psychoreactive disorders (65.2 % of all turkish females) more often. The language barriere limited the treatment in many patients. In addi tion treatment was also hampered by family induced pressure on our pat ients. This was mainly due to differences and misunderstanding concern ing the nature and treatment strategies. In spite of these difficultie s, engagement of the therapeutic teams and treatment outcome did not d iffer between german and foreign patients. In order to improve treatme nt modalities, we quote for an increasing number of psychiatrists, who are capable of serbocroatic, turkish, italian, polish or arab languag e and culture, to work in clinical psychiatry.