One would like to hope that patients are better off after therapy than before. However, a survey shows that more than a third of those affected change doctors during treatment. The fact that the doctor listens is obviously by no means a matter of course.
37 percent of those with statutory health insurance have already changed psychotherapists during treatment because they did not agree with the treatment. Of these, seven percent even changed several times. Almost two thirds of those surveyed have never changed psychotherapists. This was the result of a survey by the Central Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds (GKV), which was available to the Düsseldorf “Rheinische Post”. 2240 persons with statutory health insurance between the ages of 18 and 79 were surveyed.
The insured were therefore also asked how they rate their own therapy. Result: The majority of those with statutory health insurance are satisfied with the psychotherapy. After all, 80 percent of those questioned state that the therapist listens “intensively” or “very intensively”. However, almost a fifth of the insured said that they only listened “partially”, “less intensively” or “almost not at all”, the newspaper quoted from the survey.
Almost two-thirds of those surveyed said that their illness and its course were explained to them “intensively” or “very intensively”, while one-third said this was only done “partly-partially”, “less intensively” or “almost not at all”. . Almost half are “completely satisfied” with their current therapist and around 30 percent are “very satisfied”.
Stefanie Stoff-Ahnis, board member at the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Funds, told the newspaper: “More than a third of all patients have already changed therapeutic practice – we do not know the specific reasons. So we need meaningful quality assurance in which the patients and Patients can state exactly whether they are doing better than before the therapy, or whether they have learned strategies for dealing with their illness. This is the only way to improve the quality of treatment.”
