[Psychiatric care research--an instrument for planning health care needs].

The planning of health care is primarily an administrative task. Service research supports the health administration in this task by supplying empirical data to objectify the need for care and ways to cater for that need. In this, service research on the one hand draws on descriptive and analytical data of epidemiological studies. On the other hand, indices of social structure provide information about factors influencing the utilisation of health services. Apart from this, different types of service utilisation data are used for the analysis of needs. None of the methods mentioned is sufficient on its own. Only the integration of the different levels of analysis allows sufficiently competent statements on health care needs.