Wie beurteilen psychisch kranke Wohnungslose ihre Lebensqualität?1

Abstract

Besides pronounced deficiencies in psychiatric research concerning homeless mentally ill in Germany, studies concerned with the quality of life of homeless mentally ill were missing until now. This study reveals in a representative sample of 102 homeless people from the City of Mannheim, Germany that--compared to the homeless without psychiatric disorders of the sample--the mentally ill homeless (prevalence 68.6%) have significantly different subjective views of their quality of life regarding the items "state of health", "physical capabilities" and "support from others". The differences were even stronger if the homeless mentally ill were compared to a group of non-homeless mentally ill schizophrenic patients (n = 104), cared for in the City's well-equipped community care services. Community care patients reported a significantly better quality of life in respect of 11 items. These results were seen as a success of the concept of community-based mental health care. The consequences for improving care strategies for homeless mentally ill are discussed.

Housing Satisfaction of Psychiatric Patients in Different Forms of Housing—A Cross-Sectional Study in Berlin, Germany

“…To our knowledge, this is the first study to comprehensively evaluate HS across all housing situations of mentally ill people, rather than simply homeless vs. domiciled. As hypothesized, the results demonstrate a decrease in HS when the housing situation becomes less normative, which contributes to findings of other studies (12,14,19,25). HS was found to be significantly higher for domiciled and shared-flat categories, than facilities, and finally, people in the homeless category reported the lowest satisfaction.…”

“…Previous studies on QoL in regard to housing circumstances showed that homeless persons and psychiatric patients, but most strikingly homeless people with a mental disorder report a significantly lower QoL than the general population (5,9,17). Additionally, homeless mentally ill samples reported lower QoL in several life domains, including finances, friends and family, as compared to domiciled and community-based care patients (19,25,26).…”

The Prevalence of Mental Illness in Homeless People in Germany

“…The mean ages of the investigated homeless people ranged from 29 to 48.1 years. Five studies were conducted in Munich (n = 804) (2, 11, 27, 29, 31-39, e1), two in Tübingen (n = 108) (22,30), and one each in Berlin (n = 72) (28,40), Münster (n = 52) (26), Mannheim (n = 102) (23)(24)(25), and Dortmund (n = 82) (12,21). For the longitudinal study conducted in Munich, analysis took account of when data was first collected (27,36).…”

Threatened homelessness and mental disorders

“…Um im Rahmen der o. g. Problemfelder weiterführende Erkenntnisse über psychiatrische und/oder psychosoziale Belastungen im Vorfeld zur Wohnungslosigkeit zu erlangen, wurden nach einer Reihe von in der Vergangenheit in Mannheim (Baden-Württemberg) durchgeführten Studien im Problemfeld psychischer Störungen und Wohnungslosigkeit [38,39] …”