Healthcare research in forensic commitment or poking around in the dark : Consensus paper on the necessity for more uniform and better data

• Published in: Nervenarzt Vol. 88; no. 11; p. 1292
• Main Authors: Querengässer, J, Bezzel, A, Hoffmann, K, Mache, W, Schiffer, B
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: German
• Published: Germany 01-11-2017
• Subjects: Commitment of Mentally Ill - legislation & jurisprudence; Commitment of Mentally Ill - trends; Data Collection - legislation & jurisprudence; Data Collection - trends; Forecasting; Germany; Health Services Needs and Demand - legislation & jurisprudence; Health Services Needs and Demand - trends; Health Services Research - legislation & jurisprudence; Health Services Research - trends; Humans; Surveys and Questionnaires; Forensics; Data protection; Survey instrument; Epidemiology; Individual case data
• ISSN: 1433-0407

Complex trends in occupancy determined by many influencing factors, clear state-specific differences in imprisonment practices as well as recently implemented statutory alterations to the appropriate paragraphs in criminal law, underline the necessity for qualitative high-grade concomitant research of German forensic commitment; however, neither the structural prerequisites nor an adequate data situation are currently present in order to do justification to this aim. Not even the total number of patients currently accommodated in forensic commitment can be elucidated from the publicized (partial) statistics. This consensus paper, which was formulated by three research institutes active at the state level, describes the limited possibilities for current forensic healthcare research and raises the demand for a nationwide uniform data situation on patients in forensic commitment. Furthermore, how the appropriate elicitation instrument should be organizationally and structurally achieved, is sketched from a scientific perspective. This article aims at initiating a discussion on a sustainable improvement in the prerequisites for healthcare research in German forensic commitment and targets a sensitization of decision makers in politics and administration for this topic.