[Ambulatory psychiatric care in the Canton of Basel: comparison of the performance of the Psychiatric University Polyclinic and the practicing psychiatrist].
A sample of 500 patients of the university psychiatric outpatient department was used for analysis of the services rendered by this public institution and to compare them with those of the psychiatrists in private practice. The services of the latter were studied with a questionnaire mailed to them. We could demonstrate that the outpatient department has important function in social psychiatry. There are also important tasks to fulfill at the central general hospital, while uncomplicated psychotherapies play a minor role among the duties of this service. In spite of a certain readiness the psychiatrists in private practice are hardly able to fulfill these first two tasks. Their ability for emergency interventions and management of demanding cases with complex social problems is limited. We could state that their main fields of activity are long term analytical psychotherapies. In addition they can take over a limited number of expertise assessments and some crises interventions.