[Prevention -- a topic in social-psychiatric research?].
OBJECTIVE
Currently, substantial effort is made to establish prevention as one of the main parts of the German health care system. In this context we investigated the current role of prevention in social-psychiatric research.


METHODS
We analysed original papers published in the journal Psychiatrische Praxis in the years 2003-2004 by computer-aided full text analysis.


RESULTS
16.5 % of the studies mentioned prevention, in one fourth of these, prevention was the main topic. Subject of these papers were suicide prevention in psychiatric patients, relapse prevention in mentally ill offenders, and prevention of acute confusional state after hip surgery. Most of the work was dedicated to tertiary prevention, followed by secondary prevention. Two papers mentioned primary preventive aspects and only one report was dedicated to primary prevention as a main topic.


CONCLUSIONS
Although early diagnosis and intervention as well as rehabilitation of mental disorders are main topics of social psychiatry, only few reports relate explicitly to prevention. The role of social psychiatry in primary prevention has to be defined.
Schmidt
Christiane K
CK
Klinik und Poliklinik für Psychiatrie der Universität Leipzig. Christiane.Schmidt@medizin.uni-leipzig.de
Angermeyer
Matthias C
MC
Riedel-Heller
Steffi G
SG
D003158:Community Psychiatry; D005858:Germany; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000523:psychology; D009313:National Health Programs; D010506:Periodicals as Topic; D012106:Research; D055502:Secondary Prevention; D000092864:Suicide Prevention