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

Abstract

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.