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. 2025 Jun 3:70:1607927.
doi: 10.3389/ijph.2025.1607927. eCollection 2025.

Assessing Perceived Need for Mental Healthcare Among Adults in Germany

Lena Walther  1 , Felicitas Vogelsang  1 , Julia Thom  1 , Heike Hölling  1 , Thomas G Grobe  2 , Timm Frerk  2 , Ursula Marschall  3 , Diana Peitz  1
Affiliations

Assessing Perceived Need for Mental Healthcare Among Adults in Germany

Lena Walther et al. Int J Public Health. .

Abstract

Objectives: To describe the prevalence and distribution of perceived need for mental healthcare among adults in Germany and examine its association with more objective indicators of need as well as mental health literacy.

Methods: We used data from 6,558 adults randomly sampled from a health insurance company as well as nationally representative survey data from 10,676 adults. Prevalence estimates were calculated, also by sex, age and education. Bivariate and multivariate associations between perceived need and sociodemographic characteristics, psychopathological symptoms, functional impairment and F-diagnoses as well as mental health literacy were examined.

Results: Approximately one-sixth of adults perceived a need for mental healthcare in the previous 12 months. Perceived need was associated with female sex (bivariate association only), younger age, high educational attainment, psychopathological symptoms, mental health-related functional impairment and mental health literacy. Those with perceived need were also twice as likely to have a documented F-diagnosis than those without.

Conclusion: Perceived need should be monitored within mental health surveillance to inform healthcare planning from a patient perspective and address the mental health treatment gap.

Keywords: mental health surveillance; mental healthcare; patient perspective; perceived need; public mental health.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they do not have any conflicts of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Logistic regression predicting perceived need of mental healthcare (Germany, 2021). Note. Weighted data from Study 1: Optimised Data for Public Mental Health. Error bars show 95% confidence intervals for the odds ratios. With regard to the health-related quality of life indicators, lower scores indicate higher functional impairment.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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