[Councelling regarding prenatal diagnostic: a model project to enhance cooperation between medical and psychosocial consultants].

Although according to section 2 of the Pregnancy Conflicts Law, there is a legal claim to psychosocial counselling and although its benefit has been proven empirically, pregnant women rarely draw upon it in the context of prenatal diagnostics (PND). One of the reasons is probably that physicians are not sufficiently aware of this counselling offer. By means of the model project "Interprofessional quality circles in prenatal diagnostics" an attempt was made to counteract this deficit. For this purpose, interprofessional quality circles have been established in six different places in Germany in order to motivate medical and psychosocial consultants to an increased cooperation. The effects and realization of the quality circle efforts have been evaluated. For this purpose, structural characteristics such as cooperation practice and utilization of psychosocial counselling have been assessed using a questionnaire before and after the introduction of the quality circles. All sessions have been documented; in addition, they have been evaluated by the participants using another shorter questionnaire. The results show that the quality circles led to an improved cooperation between the different professional groups and an increased utilization of psychosocial counselling. The work of the quality circles has been evaluated positively. It was regarded as conductive to cooperation, emotionally exonerative and extremely helpful with respect to the daily counselling work. Most of all, its practicality and case management were appraised. Thus, interprofessional quality circles prove to be an adequate instrument to advance the interprofessional and aim-oriented cooperation in such a way as demanded emphatically by the German Expert Advisory Board of Community Health in its recent experts report.