Waiting times for psychotherapy before and after the reform of the psychotherapy law in Germany

Background and research question One objective of reforming the German psychotherapy law in 2017 was to reduce the time patients wait until they can start psychotherapy. This study examined whether this goal has been achieved. Methods Psychotherapy offices in seven federal states in Germany extracted the dates of the first contact, first visit, and start of treatment from their files. Waiting times for a first visit and beginning treatment were compared using Kaplan-Meier curves and stratified log-rank tests. Results Data of 1548 patient records from 9 offices were extracted. The average waiting time for a first visit was 3 weeks both before and after the reform (p = 0.20). The time between the first contact and start of treatment was 18 weeks before and 20 weeks after the reform, whereby it was the very short waiting times (<10 weeks) that decreased in particular (p = 0.0004). Discussion The data documented in the offices provide no evidence for a reduction in the waiting time for a first visit. Waiting times for beginning psychotherapy seem to have increased. Therefore, there is so far no indication that mental health care was improved in this respect by the reform.

Automated summary

The study found that while the waiting time for the first visit did not decrease significantly after the reform in German psychotherapy law, the waiting time before starting psychotherapy had increased, especially for those with short waiting times (<10 weeks). This suggests that the reform may not have improved mental health care in terms of reducing waiting times.