Background: Within the framework of psychosomatic consultation in the workplace (PSIW), external expert psychotherapists offered consultation sessions for employees at the company premises in order to establish a first contact. In contrast to the first contact usually established in regular care, PSIW explicitly focuses on the workplace and enables in-company actors to get closely involved, if the patient's consent is provided. The new model of care helps to identify mental problems at an early stage and is clinically effective. Reliable data considering the user's point of view is missing.
Objectives: How satisfied are users of the new model of care compared to users of regular care?
Material and methods: A total of 189 people from in-company (n = 91) or regular medical consultations (n = 98) made statements before first contact (t1) and 12 weeks (t2) after the initial contact. They reported satisfaction with the offer (t2), further treatment (t2), and depressiveness (t1, t2) by means of self-assessment tools. On the basis of an OLS (ordinary least squares) regression analysis, we investigated how treatment quality (clinical improvement, further treatment) and the place of treatment influenced user satisfaction (dependent variable), while controlling for selection bias and the different degrees of depression at baseline.
Results: Higher clinical improvement predicted more satisfaction with the received treatment in both (b = 1.2, CI 0.802-1.548). The mean value (MV) of satisfaction was 1.6 points higher if further treatment took place (CI 0.236-2.909). PSIW users showed a 1.8 points higher MV of satisfaction than people in regular care (CI 0.322-3.302).
Conclusions: PSIW users consider PSIW as positive in terms of treatment success and service quality.
Keywords: Depression; Early intervention; Patient satisfaction; Reliable change index; Workplace.