[Socio-medical aspects of mental disorders : Definition, epidemiology, context and assessment of capacity]

Abstract

Social medicine is an interdisciplinary field of medicine which analyses and describes the interactions between illness, individual, society, and organisational structures of the health care system, including prevention, treatment and rehabilitation. Part of social medicine is epidemiology, including analytic epidemiology. The goal is to monitor the prevalence and spectrum of illnesses in the general population or subpopulations and to study possible risks of illness. The question is which environmental or contextual factors influence the prevalence and course of illnesses. Another area of social medicine is to evaluate patients and decide who needs social support. Important topics are inability to work, need for early retirement and pension, or disability. In this context it is important to make a distinction between functions, capacities, context and participation. There is a second paper on social medicine which covers modes of care and treatment in social medicine.