German pilot study of psychiatric inpatients with histories of migration

: The work group on psychiatry and migration of the Conference of Directors of Psychiatric Hospitals in Germany conducted a study on the use of inpatient psychiatric services by migrants in 12 psychiatric and psychotherapeutic hospitals and hospital departments. In contrast to previous studies the proportion of migrants in psychiatric hospitals (17.4%) equaled that of migrants in the general population. However there still was a high rate of diagnostic and treatment problems resulting from cultural differences and, to a lesser extent, from language problems. A high proportion of migrants suffered from delusional and schizophrenic disorders, while there were considerable differences in the distribution of diagnoses between different groups of migrants, e.g. those from Turkey and eastern Europe, respectively. Roughly half of all migrants studied had German citizenship. Among the migrants of Turkish background, a high proportion was born in Germany. The number of asylum seekers and refugees was disproportionately high.