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SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1480630

Scoping Review: Outpatient Psychotherapeutic Care for Children and Adolescents in Germany - Status Quo and Challenges in Assessment

Provisionally accepted
Kristin Rodney-Wolf Kristin Rodney-Wolf *Julian Schmitz Julian Schmitz
  • Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    In the context of multiple global crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and global conflicts, children and adolescents worldwide are experiencing heightened psychological stress. As the foundation for lifelong mental health is established during childhood and adolescence, early prevention and treatment of mental health problems, such as through psychotherapy, are crucial. In Germany, current outpatient psychotherapeutic care capacities appear inadequate, while systematic evaluations of the care situation are lacking. This study investigates the state of statutory health insur-ance-funded outpatient psychotherapeutic care for children and adolescents in Germany and evalu-ates various methodological approaches for its assessment. We conducted a scoping review following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Re-views (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines. Publications from January 2018 to December 2023 were sourced from PubPsych, PubMed, APA PsycInfo, Google Scholar, and ProQuest. Included studies report quantitative primary data on the mental health of community samples of children and adolescents in Germany or their outpatient psychotherapeutic care. We included 41 publications comprising epide-miological studies, administrative data, and psychotherapist and patient reports. A lack of systematic and standardised research approaches resulted in significant variance in data. Nonetheless, qualitative analysis revealed that approximately one four children and adolescents in Germany is affected by mental health problems, while one in six to seven children and adolescents requires psychotherapeutic treatment. Yet, only up to one in fifty receives guideline-based psychotherapy. Most requests for ini-tial psychotherapeutic consultations are unmet, with waiting times for guideline-based psychotherapy exceeding six months for at least half of the patients. Overall, our findings suggest that outpatient psychotherapeutic care for children and adolescents in Germany is still insufficient. They advocate for a systematic, multimodal, and longitudinal assessment of statutory health insurance-funded outpa-tient psychotherapeutic care, along with an expansion of treatment capacities to enhance access for children and adolescents in Germany.

    Keywords: Outpatient psychotherapy, Mental healthcare, Healthcare research, Epidemiology, Children, adolescents, Germany

    Received: 14 Aug 2024; Accepted: 06 Jan 2025.

    Copyright: © 2025 Rodney-Wolf and Schmitz. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Kristin Rodney-Wolf, Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.