Treatment Outcomes in Psychosomatic Rehabilitation - The Hersfeld Catamnesis Study

Aim of the study Existing evaluation studies show the effectiveness of treatments in psychosomatic rehabilitation clinics. However, the clinics are facing new challenges, which can be attributed to the changes in the world of work, for example. At the same time, new patient groups such as older patients are coming more into focus, for whom the clinics are not yet sufficiently prepared. Againstthis background, an evaluation study was conducted in the Klinik am Hainberg, a psychosomatic rehabilitation clinic, to examine the changes in central dimensions of the outcome in psychosomatic medicine. Method For the comparison of admission vs. discharge, data are available from a sample of 761 patients, of whom 559 still responded to the 6-month Follow-up) (73 % response rate). Five modules of the HEALTH-49 were evaluated. Results In all modules, improvements were found with medium to large effect sizes at discharge, and with medium effect sizes at 6-month Follow-up. Neither age, nor gender, nortime off work had an influence on the rehabilitation outcome. Only lower education was associated with less improvement. Conclusions The results show the effectiveness of the treatments studied. The practiced rehabilitation concept seems to be effective even for patient groups that are particularly in focus, such as those with longerwork incapacity or also older patients.