[Development and evaluation of a basic documentation tool for guideline-oriented ambulatory care of depressive patients].

Quality assurance in the treatment of mental disorders is becoming increasingly significant. In this context, documentation systems are important in order to control the implementation of guidelines, to analyse shortcomings and to reveal improvement possibilities. Up till now there is no specific documentation tool for the outpatient care of depressive disorders. Within the project "Comprehensive Quality Management in Out-patient Care" a documentation tool for primary care as well as for psychiatric care of depressive patients has been developed, which embraces the principal diagnostic and therapeutic measures. This documentation tool consisting of an instrument for the physician to record the first consultation, a second instrument to record the following consultations as well as a patient questionnaire has been implemented and evaluated in primary care and psychiatric practices. The evaluation results demonstrate that the documentation tool is able to assess guideline-oriented treatment measures. Physicians evaluated the usefulness and practicability of the documentation tool positively. And although the documentation efforts required are quite extensive, this documentation tool provides a suitable basis for external or internal quality assurance as well as patient-oriented case-monitoring.