[Social status of visually handicapped patients in new combined federal Germany--a comparison with the status before 1990].

In the wake of German unification, great social change has taken place in some fields. To estimate the impact of these changes on the state of rehabilitation of people with low vision, a standardized questionnaire about their social situation was sent to those 134 adult graduates of the School for People with Low Vision in Thuringia who had already been interviewed in 1989. 56 completed questionnaires could be evaluated, and the data was compared with the data collected in 1989. While there was almost no change concerning medical rehabilitation, an interesting development in the field of financial and social benefits has taken place: Even though the number of people who qualified for support had increased from 41.1% (1989) to 62.5% now, a closer look showed that this had mainly been caused by financial benefits (such as unemployment pay, housing subsidy, etc.) linked to the social decline of the examined group of disabled people. Accordingly, the number of employed people with low vision had decreased from 98.2% in 1989 to 60.7% today. Nevertheless all respondents seem to be secure financially (increase of the net income per month and household for 48.2% of the respondents) and fortunately 78.6% lived in their own flat (compared to only 64.3% in 1989). The general liberalization of public life in the new German Laender is reflected by the fact that 19.6% of the people with low vision felt able to make new friends and that traveling (with 50%) ranked second among the hobbies mentioned. The views people with low vision hold relative to the general living conditions illustrate a general uncertainty in the wake of the changes in the entire social system (statement: "Everything has become insecure"--55.4%), but also reveals that better economic background conditions are appreciated.