Every third person suffers from mental disorders

Every third person suffers from mental disorders: According to a study, almost every third German citizen suffers from a diagnosable mental disorder within one year. This comes from an evaluation in which a total of 19 professors and clinic heads from the fields of psychology and psychosomatics have participated. The project analyzed mental and psychosomatic illnesses in Germany and frequency of occurrence.

(24.10.2010) About 30 percent of Germans suffer from a mental or emotional illness. According to a report in the news magazine „Focus“ Depression, anxiety disorders, psychosomatic diseases and alcohol, drug and drug addiction are the most common mental illnesses in Germany. Since the psychological impairments have been rising steadily in recent years, the cost of therapy in Germany increased in 2008 to 28.6 billion euros. This is the result of surveys by the Federal Statistical Office as well as analyzes by the Robert Koch Institute. The German pension insurance alone has a massive increase of so-called „New pensioners“ who retired prematurely because of a mental illness. A total of 64,000 people - that's a record result - were affected in 2009. According to experts, this growing problem is not limited to Germany, but is similar in the other western industrialized nations.

In view of this catastrophic development, the health experts warn in a public appeal that the costs and consequences of mental illnesses in the future are no longer manageable. The three initiators of the appeal Joachim Galuska, Medical Director of the Psychosomatic Hospitals Bad Kissingen, Prof. Thomas Loew, Professor of Psychosomatic Medicine in Regensburg, and Dr. med. Johannes Vogler, chief physician of the clinic Isny-Neutrauchburg, warned that adequate treatment of the patients would not be possible at present, even if further additional financial means were available. At the moment, psychiatrists, psychologists and psychotherapists would on average have to care for three times more patients than they could actually manage in the daily routine of treatment.

Not only adults are affected. According to a study by the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE), a quarter of children and adolescents under the age of 18 already suffer from mental or psychosomatic complaints such as anxiety, abdominal pain, depression, inner restlessness and stress. Based on the results of the Hamburg study, it became clear that the increasing pressure to perform in work and school is responsible for this. (Sb)

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