The many significant changes that have come about in the mental health service of different countries in the last two decades have made administrative and political decision making in the distribution of care services a much more hazardous business. In the United States, for example, the number of occupied psychiatric beds fell from 550,000 in 1955 to 190,000 in 1977. England and Wales experienced similar if less pronounced changes, while in the Federal Republic of Germany the same trend became apparent some five years ago, although here the initial hospitalisation rates were lower. Enquiry into the real needs for various forms of mental health care, especially the need for hospital beds, for places in homes and hostels, and for specialist out-patient treatment, has now become a funda mental aim of research in social psychiatry. To achieve this goal by epi demiological concepts and methods, including the investigation of true morbidity rates and the estimation of the related need for care, must be used.

1 Introduction

1.1 Estimation of Needs by Epidemiological Instruments
2 Morbidity, Needs, and Utilization: General Contributions
2.1 Ideas in Psychiatric Epidemiology
2.3 Prospects for Epidemiological Research in Neurosis
2.3 Estimation of Need on the Basis of Field Survey Findings
3 Psychiatric Case Register as a Basis for Estimation and Monitoring of Needs
3.1 Psychiatric Case Registers
3.2 Estimation of Need on the Basis of Case Register Studies: British Case Register Data
3.3 Estimation of Need on the Basis of Case Register Studies: Discussion
4 Psychiatric Morbidity and Needs for Care in General Practice
4.1 Psychiatric Morbity in General Practice in a West-German City
4.2 Psychiatric Morbidity and Treatment in General Medical Practice: Discussion
5 Suicidal Attempts in Hospital-Emergency Units
5.1 Social and Ecological Background of Attempted Suicides in Mannheim
6 Epidemiological Studies in Child Psychiatry
6.1 Child Psychiatry: Recent Epidemiological Advances
6.2 Mentally Retarded Children in Camberwell (London)
6.3 Mentally Handicapped Children in Mannheim
7 Needs for Mental Health Care and Utilization of Services Monitored by Field Studies
7.1 Incidence of First Contacts and Need of Staff and Beds in a Community Psychiatric Service
7.2 Estimate of the Need for Psychiatric Services, as Indicated by a Social-Psychiatric Survey of the Finnish Population.