Psychotherapeutic resources in the general hospital of Vienna - A representative empirical survey

Since 1993 the Austrian Federal-Hospital-Law demands the guarantee of adequ ate psychotherapeutic and clinical psychological care in Austrian hospitals . The target of the present survey was to explore the extent of realisation of this demand concerning the psychotherapeutic care in the General Hospit al of Vienna (AKH). 125 of the 128 employees with psychotherapeutic qualifi cations were interviewed. The considerable number of psychotherapeutically qualified employees cannot obscure the fact that inadequate structural prec onditions impede a satisfying care. These are: most of the interviewed pers ons have been employed because of other vocational qualifications (medical doctors, psychologists etc.). Therefore they can only use a very limited pa rt of their worktime on psychotherapeutic interventions. Deficits of spatia l and temporal resources could be detected as well as unclear vocational ch aracteristics and qualification requirements. These deficits point out the necessity of developing professionally founded organisation structures, whi ch enable well aimed networking and an optimal usage of resources.