Article

Superseding psychiatric advance directives: ethical and legal considerations.

Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University Medical Center, Box 3071, Durham, NC 27710, USA.
The journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (impact factor: 0.93). 02/2006; 34(3):385-94. pp.385-94
Source: PubMed

ABSTRACT Psychiatric advance directives (PADs) were introduced in the 1980s as legal instruments for psychiatric patients to retain some choice over their own mental health treatment during periods of decisional incapacity. However, PADs are nested in larger structures of mental health law and policy that protect the interests of parties other than the patient, and which, in situations of conflict involving the treatment of incapacitated patients, tend to favor the clinician's professional judgment over the patient's manifest wishes to avoid standard treatment. Thus, PADs are trumped by civil commitment law and may also be legally overridden by clinicians who, acting in good faith, consider PAD instructions to be inconsistent with accepted clinical standards of care. We discuss philosophical-ethical and legal issues surrounding overriding PADs and offer analysis of the possible future of legal cases in which the question of overriding PADs and fiscal concerns may collide.

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    Article: Commentary: psychiatric advance directives at a crossroads--when can PADs be overridden?
    Paul S Appelbaum
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    ABSTRACT: Current statutes enabling psychiatric advance directives (PADs) typically include provisions allowing override of patients' choices by treatment staff. Lest the purpose of the PAD be vitiated by too broad an application of the override mechanism, its use should be carefully limited. In inpatient settings, voluntary patients should have the right to decline treatments in advance, although not an absolute right to demand treatments of their choosing. The situation of involuntary patients is more complex. Permitting PADs to trump commitment statutes would undercut the combined parens patriae/police power rationale for commitment, a path taken currently by no U.S. jurisdiction. Moreover, PADs should not be permitted to negate the usual mechanisms for involuntary treatment of committed patients; to do otherwise risks forcing facilities to confine indefinitely persons they cannot treat. Even in those circumstances, however, where PADs provide evidence of reasonable patient preferences (e.g., for one medication over another), the choices they embody should be respected.
    The journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 02/2006; 34(3):395-7. · 0.93 Impact Factor
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    Article: Commentary: the climate for physician adherence to psychiatric advance directives.
    Robert Bernstein
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    ABSTRACT: Factors that may be significant in rationalizing physician overrides of psychiatric advance directives (PADs) are not only features of individual clinical scenarios, but also are artifacts of the faltering mental health system being navigated by both provider and patient. This system, frequently viewed as hostile to consumer choice and increasingly focused on reacting to recurrent crises, is not predisposed to accepting proactive, person-centered measures such as PADs. In fact, PADs may hold great promise in improving clinical outcomes and even reducing system costs. But to realize the full potentials of PADs requires that providers understand their roles in challenging or perpetuating problems in the larger mental health system.
    The journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law 02/2006; 34(3):402-5. · 0.93 Impact Factor
Data provided are for informational purposes only. Although carefully collected, accuracy cannot be guaranteed. The impact factor represents a rough estimation of the journal's impact factor and does not reflect the actual current impact factor. Publisher conditions are provided by RoMEO. Differing provisions from the publisher's actual policy or licence agreement may be applicable.

Keywords

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