Legal and Ethical Issues Surrounding Psychiatric Emergencies Essay

Buy ready-to-submit essays. No Plagiarism Guarantee!

Note: Our papers are 100% human-written. 

Check before you submit. Get Turnitin Score Report in 15 Minutes.

Don't risk the 'Red' score. Get the exact same Turnitin report your professor uses. Join 50,000+ students who submitted their essays with confidence this semester.

Get Turnitin Score Report Request Human Rewrite

Legal and Ethical Issues Surrounding Psychiatric Emergencies Essay

1. Explain the state of Maryland laws for involuntary psychiatric holds for child and adult psychiatric emergencies. Include who can hold a patient and for how long, who can release the emergency hold, and who can pick up the patient after a hold is released.

When a comparison is made between child & adolescent psychiatrists and general emergency psychiatrists, the problem of the hospital involuntary mental detention is likely to be stopped by child & adolescent psychiatrists. Despite the patient being at a risk of injury when in an improper hold termination, the alternative lengthy hold continuance also denies the patients their rights which may impact an increase in mental boarding while in emergency rooms (Konstanzer, 2017). However, seeking an early access to child & adolescents’ psychiatrists might fasten the process of patients getting off of hold thus receiving a much consistent therapy. Legal and Ethical Issues Surrounding Psychiatric Emergencies Essay

ORDER  HERE A PLAGIARISM-FREE PAPER HERE

• who can hold a patient and for how long?

A court order in the State of Maryland permit a person suffering from a mental health disorder to be involuntarily held for 72hours hospitalization in a psychiatric center. After 72hours, the hospital has two options of either releasing the patient or giving them an administrative hearing after ten days to determine whether they will continue with the hospital stay or not (Konstanzer, 2017). The judge will determine whether the patient will continue with their hospital stay or not after the presentation. If the decision made is for the patient to continue with hospitalization, the latter is given 30more days to appeal their case.

• who can release the emergency hold?

The patient can either be released by the healthcare facility where the patient has been involuntarily admitted or a court order from the judge. In the case of the healthcare facility, the patient can be released if he/she does not meet the conditions that requires one to be involuntarily held (Konstanzer, 2017). However, if the patient meets these conditions and fails to cooperate, an administrative hearing is arranged after 10days where the judge now decides whether the patient should be released or not. Legal and Ethical Issues Surrounding Psychiatric Emergencies Essay

• who can pick up the patient after a hold is released.

If an adult patient is found not eligible to the involuntary hold conditions, they may be freely released since the psychiatrist at this point believes the patient is harmless to themselves and community members. However, if the patient is a minor, the people who admitted him/her such as the parents must pick their child after a hold is released.

2. Differences among emergency hospitalization for evaluation/psychiatric hold, inpatient commitment, and outpatient commitment in your state.

There are various civil rules and criteria that healthcare consumers should understand in each state. These rules and criteria involve an individual’s eligibility for intervention based on where they live so that they can get access to treatment whenever a mental crisis occurs. Majority of the States have committed to provide all the three types of involuntary treatment. However, in the state of Maryland there are only two types of involuntary treatment which include Emergency hospitalization for evaluation and Inpatient civil commitment. For the case of the outpatient commitment therapy, the Court of Maryland ordered that it has not been implemented. The outpatient commitment therapy is a type of therapy where a person living with mental health disease receives a court order that direct them to follow a treatment health plan while living with other people in the community (Jackson-Blott, 2018). Assisted outpatient treatment has therefore not been approved in the state of Maryland, despite being approved in over 45 states. Legal and Ethical Issues Surrounding Psychiatric Emergencies Essay

The emergency hospitalization is a crisis intervention type where an individual is admitted in healthcare facility for mental health assessment for a certain period, usually two-three days. It is also referred to as pick-up or psychiatric hold. The state of Maryland is one of the many states that allows a violent or suicidal thoughts person to be immediately taken to an emergency facility for quick assessment of mental health and treatment through the Maryland’s Emergency Petition (Jackson-Blott, 2018). The inpatient civil commitment on the other hand is a legal procedure order from the court that directs the healthcare facility to offer hospital care for a person who has met the state civil commitment standards after emergency time has elapsed.

3. Difference between capacity and competency in mental health contexts. Legal and Ethical Issues Surrounding Psychiatric Emergencies Essay

The two terms capacity and competence are so much related and legally and ethically charged, especially when practitioners fail to understand them during healthcare delivery and provision. To begin with, capacity is a functional evaluation of the level of competence of a person/healthcare provider towards making a medical decision (Sockalingam et al., 2018). It mainly depends on the baseline skills of a patient and a healthcare provider when in need of a proper treatment intervention.

Competency on the other hand is a concept that determines an individual’s capacity towards engaging in legal processes (Sockalingam et al., 2018). It is often determined by how much an individual engages in legal proceedings. A hearing and /or a presentation are the only evidence requirements to prove wrong an individual’s capacity. After the hearing, it is the mandate of a judge to decide whether the person is competent or not. Such decisions are not made by medical practitioners and hence the judge is responsible. Legal and Ethical Issues Surrounding Psychiatric Emergencies Essay

4. Select one of the following topics, and explain one legal issue and one ethical issue related to this topic that may apply within the context of treating psychiatric emergencies

Confidentiality in medical terms refers to something being kept private, usually patient health information. One confidentiality legal issue is that secrecy obligates solicitors to an organization’s law jurisdictions should always maintain confidentiality of their clients’ personal information (Nittari et al., 2020). In this case healthcare providers in the various healthcare facilities should ensure that patient health information is safe and cannot leak to unauthorized individuals or the public.

In terms of ethical issues, secrecy emerge when confidentiality clashes with other standards of ethics. For instance, confidentiality may collide during prevention of a harm to the patient and other patients where afterwards, it offers major topics that the committee might want to address to offer some legal and ethical guidelines of tackling the problem (Nittari et al., 2020). Legal and Ethical Issues Surrounding Psychiatric Emergencies Essay

Identify one evidence-based suicide risk assessment that you could use to screen patients.

In a clinical and outpatient environment such as outpatient pharmacy, suicide screening is essential towards showing compassion to others. To facilitate suicide screening assessment, considering non-judgmental approach is always essential to the patient. According to the joint commission, all mental health patients should be tested for suicidal thoughts by use of an evidence-based screening instrument (Konstanzer, 2017). The patient Health Questionnaire 2 (PHQ2) is one common validated suicidal thoughts screening instrument. Many hospitals at state levels apply the tool because of its simplicity and straightforwardness towards assessing an individual. Originally, the tool was meant to screen for depression, but it now screens suicide. The tool contains a scale of 0 to 3 where 0 represent “not at all”, 1 represent “several days”, 2 represent “more than half the days”, and 3 represent “nearly every day.” The patient gives one of these answers to two questions; Legal and Ethical Issues Surrounding Psychiatric Emergencies Essay

1. Little interest or pleasure in doing things
2. Feeling down, depressed, or hopeless

If the patient responds “not at all” to both questions, further screening is not required. If they answer “yes” to both or either of the two, further screening is necessary.

6. Identify one evidence-based violence risk assessment that you could use to screen patients.

Risk assessments tools are important as they facilitate healthcare practitioners to acquire a frame of knowledge and reference while screening patients for violence (Konstanzer, 2017). The triage tool is one risk assessment tool that I could utilize towards screening patients. It is an essential tool as it screens the dangers that the patient might cause to him/herself or other people surrounding them. Legal and Ethical Issues Surrounding Psychiatric Emergencies Essay

ORDER  NOW

References

Jackson-Blott, K. (2018). Recovery in mental health: Multiple perspectives (Doctoral

dissertation, Cardiff University). https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/114445

Konstanzer, R. D. (2017). Mental health crisis in Maryland: A lack of hospital beds for the

mentally ill presents Maryland legislature with concerns about the legality and

practicality of detainment. J. Legis., 44, 84.

Nittari, G., Khuman, R., Baldoni, S., Pallotta, G., Battineni, G., Sirignano, A., … & Ricci, G.

(2020). Telemedicine practice: review of the current ethical and legal

challenges. Telemedicine and e-Health, 26(12), 1427-1437.

https://doi.org/10.1089/tmj.2019.0158

Sockalingam, S., Arena, A., Serhal, E., Mohri, L., Alloo, J., & Crawford, A. (2018). Building

provincial mental health capacity in primary care: an evaluation of a project ECHO

mental health program. Academic psychiatry, 42, 451-457.

https://doi.org/10.1007/s40596-017-0735-z Legal and Ethical Issues Surrounding Psychiatric Emergencies Essay