Clinical diagnostics of mental disorders especially among refugees and asylum seekers come with unique difficulties: language barriers, different forms of expression and concepts of the understanding of mental illness as well as a different cultural background. Therefore professional interpreters are needed but associated with a higher effort related to costs and time. We conducted a retrospective analysis of costs, which incurred by the use of professional interpreters in our outpatient clinic in Berlin, Germany, in the first quarter 2016 for the treatment of refugees and asylum seekers. The sample consisted of 110 refugees and asylum seekers; the highest costs in the use of interpreters incurred among Neurotic, stress-related and somatoform disorders (53.04%), especially Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (39.04%), as well as affective disorders (38.47%), especially major depressive episodes (25.23%). Our data point out the crucial need of a regulation of costs with regard to the service of professional interpreters in Germany.
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