Treatment expectation of psychosomatic patients and their significance in the polyclinic and consultation service
Schöl, R.; Künsebeck, H.W.
Zeitschrift für Psychosomatische Medizin und Psychoanalyse 30(2): 119-133
1984
ISSN/ISBN: 0340-5613 PMID: 6730733 Document Number: 241923
Clinical experience has shown, that psychosomatic patients in an outpatient clinic on the one hand and a consultation-liaison-service on the other hand differ in their motivation for psychotherapeutic treatment. We assumed that the patients' expectancies about the helpfulness of the different treatment methods can be a meaningful variable explaining this finding. By means of an empirical investigation we found two factors of expectancies. The first one was concerned with medical treatment, and the second with psychotherapeutic treatment. The two groups of patients showed significant differences in the intensity of these expectancies: in the patients of the Consultation-liaison-service dominated the expectancies concerning medical treatment, while in the patients of the outpatient-clinic the intensity of expectancies concerning psychotherapeutic treatment was significantly higher. The results are discussed on the background of the doctor-patient-interaction.