Outpatient civil commitment Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Outpatient civil commitment - Essay Example This paper will focus on involuntary civil commitment. Outpatient civil commitment raises ethical and legal issues for the mental health practitioner. Ethical principles require that the decision to commit a patient requires that the clinician balance factors favoring commitment. Such factors include the patient’s welfare and safety, treatment to relieve pain, and the welfare and safety of others. Factors opposing commitment, for instance, individual liberty, patient privacy and the uncertainty of predicting future harm should also be considered by the mental health officer (Schopp, 2003). Ethical principles state that mental health officers who manage suicidal patients need to know the standards and procedures of civil commitment, whether inpatient or outpatient. In cases where commitment laws are strict and commitment is not easy to obtain, other management options must be pursued to obtain adequate treatment for a patient and to reduce the patient’s danger of experiencing more suffering (Schopp, 2003). Mental health officers are bound to be responsible for wrong decisions made. Whenever a clinician is in doubt, he or she should seek judicial review about the commutability of a potentially dangerous action towards the patient. The society defines the role of the clinicians in terms of professional responsibilities to patients. The clinician’s first duty is to do no harm to the patients. They can avoid harming patients by showing respect for their autonomy. Respect of autonomy may be manifested when the patient is allowed to make his/her own decision whether to reject or accept medical care that has been recommended by a medical officer. Acting without the patient’s approval is unethical. Clinicians are also bound by their professional obligations to help patients; doctors are required to provide patients with services that are geared towards benefiting them (Schopp, 2003). On the contrary, there are