ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Aging Psychiatry
Psychosocial Characteristics Among Older Clients in Outpatient Care
Provisionally accepted
- Sigmund Freud University Vienna, Vienna, Vienna, Austria
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Abstract Introduction: This study investigates main psychosocial characteristics of older adults (age ≥60) in an outpatient psychotherapeutic context and to derive implications for tailored psychotherapeutic services by assessing the socio-demographic factors of this clientele, thereby deepening mental health professionals’ understanding of psychotherapy for this age group. Method: The processed data were acquired during the standard initial registration protocol at the psychotherapeutic outpatient clinic for adults of the Sigmund Freud PrivateUniversity Vienna (SFU). An analysis of psychosocial and clinical characteristics was conducted for n=166 older clients. To operationalize the psychopathological characteristics the instrument CORE-OM was used. Thus, obtaining the results through one-way ANOVAs, χ2-analyses and descriptive statistics. Results: Among other aspects older clients differ mainly in contrast to the other age groups in the following characteristics: lower educational levels (19,3%;χ2(n=166,10)=305.04,c=.24,ccorr=.28,p<.001), higher expression rates of somatic diseases (51,2%;χ2(n=166,2)=24.21,c=.07,ccorr=.09,p<.001),need for psychopharmacological treatment (43,3%; χ2(n=166,2)=171.19,c=.18,ccorr=.24,p<.001) as well as lower level of alcohol and drug abuse (86,7%;χ2(n=166,2)=195.08,c=.19,ccorr=.26,p<.001). Moreover, older clients indicate significantly lower wellbeing scores than other age groups (F(2,5042)=8.18,p<.001,η2=.003). Additionally, late adults tend to terminate their therapeutic process prematurely (20,8%) but do not differ effect systematically (p>.05). Discussion: This study demonstrates that older clients are similar in many psychosocial aspects to the other age groups, but are additionally confronted with specific age-related challenges. Psychosocial care institutions should take these challenges into account.
Keywords: Psychotherapy, age, Psychopathology, lifespan-development, gerontopsychology ORCID
Received: 12 Jun 2025; Accepted: 13 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Winter, Becher-Urbaniak, Fürholzer, Seistock, Külzer and Aden. 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: Stella Becher-Urbaniak, stella.becher-urbaniak@sfu.ac.at
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