Standards for the sociomedical assessment of performance in psychosomatic medicine and psychotherapy

Sociomedical problems are playing an increasingly important role in both psychosomatic medicine and psychotherapy and in psychiatry. The present article examines the standards relating to content and method in sociomedical assessments, primarily in the discipline of psychosomatic medicine and psychotherapy. The focus is on the assessment of performance, highlighting the fact that performance and performance deficits cannot primarily be derived from the medical diagnosis; instead, psychosocial variables that influence the processes of dealing with disease in particular affect the actual performance status. The article pays particular attention to aspects that aggravate or dissimulate performance competence. Finally, the principles of integrating the various findings and results that are incorporated into the assessment report are outlined.