Table 3.
Selected treatment aspects
| General Practitioners | Patients |
| Applied treatments (18)a: | Expectations (17): |
| Therapeutic talk and psychopharmacological medication (14) | Be listened to, conversation about the problems, be taken seriously, sympathy (10) |
| Mainly supporting therapeutic talk (7) | Suggestion of concrete treatments (5) |
| Mainly psychopharmacological medication (3) | - Medication (3) |
| - Referral to psychologist (1) | |
| - Symptom relief (1) | |
| Advice how to deal with symptoms (2) | |
| Topics of conversation (13): | Treatment Preferences (20): |
| Possible individual causes for depression (6) | Psychotherapy (6) |
| Relaxation techniques (1) | No Psychotherapy (4) |
| Psychoeducation (1) | Psychopharmacological treatment (4) |
| Activation (1) | No pharmacological treatment (6) |
| Reduction of excessive demands (1) | |
| Resource orientation (1) | |
| Self-worth enhancement (1) | |
| Concrete behavioural advises (1) | |
| Treatment problems (18): | Satisfaction (20): |
| Yes (10) | Satisfied with treatment (14) |
| - Patients' refusal of pharmacological therapy or non-compliance (5) | Not satisfied with treatment (6) for following reasons: |
| - GPs' insecurity with pharmacological treatment (3) | - Not enough time (2) |
| - Motivating the patient to use offers for counselling or psychotherapy (3) | - Insufficient communication between GP and practice nurse (1) |
| - Insufficient efficiency of treatment (3) | - Not taking somatic complaints seriously and not offering special treatments such as physical therapy (1) |
| - Patients' acceptance of the diagnosis (2) | - Not taking presented complaint (fatigue) seriously and not offering concrete treatment besides exercising (1) |
| - Problems with appointments for referral (2) | - Not addressing depression in more detail, e.g. by applying a questionnaire (1) |
| - Heightened utilization of primary care (2) | |
| - Personal strain due to insufficient efficiency of treatment and perceived lack of competence (2) | |
| - Lack of time (1) | |
| - Financial losses because of time consuming psychological diagnosis (1) | |
| No (8) |
a numbers in parentheses are numbers of responding informants