Posted: August 1st, 2023

Ethical Issues Integrated into Mental Health Care

.QUESTION: Is there a relationship between informed consent, privileged communication, and confidentiality, and how are they at times in conflict between the law and mental health professionals? How do these concepts relate to competency, criminal responsibility, insanity, and criminal commitment? Give specific examples.

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Ethical Issues Integrated into Mental Health Care
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Ethical Issues Integrated into Mental Health Care
Mental health professionals are compelled to make informed decisions in matters of informed consent, privileged communication and confidentiality in ways of handling client’s health information (Melton, 2017). They should be in a position to distinguish between confidentiality and the legal aspect of privileged communication. According to the American Medical Association’s provisions, principles of medical ethics, medical practitioners are supposed to safeguard the patient’s information unless within the law constraints (Carman, 2016). This discourse seeks to expound on the relationships between informed consent, confidentiality and privileged communication concerning the mental health professional while highlighting their significance in criminal responsivity, insanity and criminal commitments.
Confidentiality refers to the ethical duty to safeguard information shared by clients to the third party without authorization. Privileged communication refers to the professional normal whereby a practitioner is within his jurisdictional rights to disclose the information in court or legal proceedings on to the extent permitted by the law. There are considerations about the disclosure, for essence, the parties involved and harm caused following the information’s disclosure. In most cases, the benefits should outweigh the harm caused by disclosing confidential information. Therefore, mental health professionals must understand the distinction between privileged communication and confidentiality in avoiding spurring conflict (Lamont-Mills, 2018).
Additionally, Informed consent upholds the ethical concept of protecting the welfare and autonomy of the patient, whereby the concept guarantees patients’ specific rights to choose the type of test, assessment, or treatment to be conducted on them. Therefore, patients receive adequate information regarding the treatments and have the right to accept or decline treatment. This is after sufficient information about the treatment’s benefits, reasonably foreseeable risks of the treatment, and available alternatives (Reamer, 2018). Competency is a prerequisite for informed consent in any health care context to ensure that patients receive adequate and appropriate information. This is ascertained by determining the patient’s decision-making ability rather than the outcome of the decisions. Incompetency sets in when a mental health practitioner makes decisions from persons with bipolar of Alzheimer’s disease with quite capabilities to make decisions.
Violations of these codes may lead to conflict between law and mental health professionals. Conflicts between law and mental health professionals concerning competency are very crucial. Criminal responsibility and competence to stand trials call the defendant’s mental state in question. Insanity and defense standards are reviewed in legal issues, and the standard of competence is outlined (Kois, 2019). An exemplary instance is when one is charged for a crime, and his or her mind is in question. Therefore, the person in charge of conducting the examination must be competent to ascertain criminal responsibility and insanity. Wrongful diagnosis can lead to error in the verdict, either sentencing a genuinely mentally unstable defendant or acquittance of a wrongly misdiagnosed criminal (Lamont-Mills, 2018).
According to the Insanity Defense Act, a mental health professional must be in a position to determine the defendants is unable to appreciate nature; thus, the commission for the crime. The insanity of defense remains one of the most controversial issues in the criminal justice system as many misconceptions control these insanity pleas’ success rates. (Carman, 2016) These complex evaluations require highly competent mental health professionals coupled with several measuring instruments to access insanity, especially those used in criminal law. Additionally, the mental health professional’s assessments of criminals facilitate criminal commitments by eliminating uncertainties and establishing their competence to stand trials.
With the advent of technology, there is a shift in the dissemination of client’s records as more policies are enacted to protect the client’s information confidentiality. Thus, it is the ethical responsibility of a physical to safeguard information unless with the patient’s authorization. Moreover, policies have been enacted, such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, to safeguard healthcare information from unauthorized recipients’ use and disclosure (Cohen, 2018). HIPAA rights, ethical codes and conduct regarding the protection of client’s information are essential to guarantee the protection of sensitive information, thus ensuring the safety of all the parties involved. It is the primary responsibility of mental health professionals to safeguard the client’s information, keeping in mind that clients placed their ultimate faith and trust in their confidentiality.
Conclusion
Mental health professionals face many ethical dilemmas in their line of duty in an attempt to abide by the law while honoring their client’s confidentiality agreements. Maintaining confidentiality while still adhering to communication privilege is imperative to avoid any conflicts between the professionals and the law. The competency of mental health professionals comes in handy to avoid mishaps in the criminal justice system. The integration between informed consent, privileged communication and confidentiality plays an important role in enabling mental health professionals are within their rights in matters of criminal responsibility and insanity defense. Their competence in key in solving a lot of crimes and reduce backlogs resulting from inconclusive examinations of the defendant’s mental health.
References
Carman, N. (2016). Healthcare Law & Ethics.
Cohen, I. G., & Mello, M. M. (2018). HIPAA and protecting health information in the 21st century. Jama, 320(3), 231-232.
Lamont-Mills, A., Christensen, S., & Moses, L. (2018). Confidentiality and informed consent in counseling and psychotherapy: a systematic review. Melbourne: PACFA.
Kois, L. E., Chauhan, P., & Warren, J. I. (2019). Competence to Stand Trial and Criminal Responsibility. Psychological Science and the Law, 293.
Melton, G. B., Petrila, J., Poythress, N. G., Slobogin, C., Otto, R. K., Mossman, D., & Condie, L. O. (2017). Psychological evaluations for the courts: A handbook for mental health professionals and lawyers. Guilford Publications.
Reamer, F. G. (2018). Ethical issues in integrated health care: implications for social workers. Health & social work, 43(2), 118-124.

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