[Expectations of patients and relatives for modern hospital care in geriatric psychiatry]. / Erwartungen von Patienten und Angehörigen an eine moderne alterspsychiatrische Krankenhausversorgung.

OBJECTIVE: In order to improve health care in geriatric psychiatry, users must be granted a larger role in shaping their treatment. To this aim we identify factors that are essential to psychiatric care from users' perspectives. METHODS: Focus groups and interviews (n = 12) were conducted to identify the health care factors that were most essential to its users. In addition, patients (n = 72) and relatives (n = 62) evaluated the current health care in a questionnaire. RESULTS: The most essential factors were longer consultations with doctors and treatment providers, comprehensive and comprehensible information, individualized procedures and therapies, having clearly defined scopes for each professional group, environmental factors and the integration of relatives into the therapy process. CONCLUSION: The reported factors could help improve health services in geriatric psychiatry by pointing towards potential changes and room for optimization in health care on both structural and process levels.