At the border of social psychiatric care systems - A study of "High Utilizers" in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern

Research in social psychiatry has partly neglected the problem of comparatively disturbed persons, who are characterized by a shift from the regular social psychiatric care system into homelessness, closed psychiatric treatment or other desintegrated areas. Against this background in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, an evaluation of all clinical and complementary institutions engaged in psychiatry was realized. 83.5% of the institutions took part in the study and 137 (5.21%) persons were identified as critical. 59.4% of the institutions, especially therapeutic living groups, remarked that they had treated critical persons during the last year. Sociodemographically, the critical persons could be characterized by comparatively limited interpersonal relationships und a high unemployed status. A factor analysis has resulted in 4 factors characterizing the problematical behaviour: (i) aggression, low social adjustment and impulsivity; (ii) suicidal behaviour; (iii) delinquency and substance use; (iv) manipulative behaviour and pestering. Defining a comparatively high of disturbed behaviour, 51 persons could be identified.