Psychotherapy from a health-economics point of view

Background: In the health care delivery system patients suffering from a me ntal disorder often remain untreated or are treated inadequately for too lo ng. Increased availability of qualified psychotherapy services could improv e the mental health care situation, but since health care costs are explodi ng more importance is attached to immediate economic benefit than to treatm ent efficacy. Objective: Cost-benefit analysis of the implementation of psychotherapy in comparision with standard medical treatment. Methods: A meta-analysis of 124 cost-benefit studies of psychotherapy. Results: The analyses show that compared to ordinary medical treatment psyc hotherapy is not only more efficient in treating mental disorders but also cheaper. Increasing costs for psychotherapy would be well compensated by me dical and public economies. The analysis clearly shows the discrepancy betw een the possible and actual benefit of psychotherapy. Conclusions: The results are discussed in relation to suboptimal and false treatments, chronification, health economics as well as the discrepancy of available benificial psychological treatments to the reality of medical ser vices.