Assignment; Ethical and Legal Foundations of PMHNP Care Essay

Assignment; Ethical and Legal Foundations of PMHNP Care Essay

Assignment; Ethical and Legal Foundations of PMHNP Care Essay

Mental health practitioners, especially psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners (PMHNP), need ethical and legal foundations on a host of areas that impact patient care and provision of services. Ethical codes guide clinical decision making while laws or legal frameworks mandate the requirements that must be followed in care delivery. As such, codes represent the minimum standards of care while ethics represent the highest care goals or aspirations. Informed consent affects the delivery of mental health care to patients; both adults and children. Informed consent entails the process of ensuring that that patients make voluntary and informed care decisions in the recommended health interventions (Bipeta, 2019. Healthcare providers should educate patients on the risks, benefits and alternatives of certain interventions before they allow them to make final determination and decision. The purpose of this paper is to discuss informed consent in mental health and its legal and ethical implications for PMHNP practice by reviewing existing literature in adults and children or adolescents.

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Ethical Considerations for Adult Patients

Informed consent is a critical aspect in mental health provision as captured by the article by Strini et al. (2021). According to the article, adult patients must give consent for nurses to implement any intervention in care provision. The salient aspects addressed by the article include the role of nurses to offer sufficient information, and ascertaining competency of the patient to make such decisions. The article argues that failing to inform patients about the informed concept aspect demonstrates lack of ethical conduct on the nurse as a healthcare provider.

Legal Considerations for Adult Patients

The article by Dalal (2020) explores the concept of consent in psychiatry, especially when dealing with adult patients. The article is categorical that informed consent should focus on ensuring that a patient has special knowledge so that they become competent to make decisions in a better way. The article advances that such an approach enhances autonomy and freedom of choice. Another salient aspect of the article entails the implications associated with informed consent like clinical, legal, and ethical dimensions.

Ethical Considerations for Children/Adolescents

In their article, Lamont et al. (2019) focus on ethical considerations associated with informed consent when handling minors or children and adolescents. The article’s most salient ethical issue is that while parents act as surrogates in such scenarios and engage in decision making, in the event that the adolescent declines a particular intervention, it would be unethical for the provider to continue the treatment process.

Legal Considerations for Children/Adolescents

The article by Walker (2019) is emphatic that adolescents and children lack the competency to make decisions confirming informed consent. The implication is that healthcare professionals must uphold their patient’s autonomy and offer informed consent to parents who can make any decision. The article emphasizes the need for providers to respect the decisions that parents make, even when they do not agree with them.

Importance of the Information to Practice

The information from these articles could apply to my clinical practice within my state because it shows how psychiatric nurse practitioners should handle adult and minor patients in their practice. The information has implications for practice as it shows the need to comply with ethical and legal requirements in different aspects of care provision. Through the compliance, one can avoid possible litigations and violations of ethical standards expected of nurse practitioners on mental health specialty.

Conclusion

Nurse practitioners, especially in mental health need to understand the concept of informed consent to prevent potential ethical and legal violations that may have detrimental effects on patients. The articles show critical salient aspects that psychiatric nurses must consider to provide better care and avoid complex ethical and legal challenges in care provision.

References

Bipeta, R. (2019). Legal and ethical aspects of mental health care. Indian journal of

            psychological medicine, 41(2), 108-112. DOI: 10.4103/IJPSYM.IJPSYM_59_19

Dalal, P. K. (2020). Consent in psychiatry-concept, application & implications. The Indian

            Journal of Medical Research, 151(1), 6. DOI: 10.4103/ijmr.IJMR_1518_19

Lamont, S., Stewart, C., & Chiarella, M. (2019). Capacity and consent: knowledge and practice

of legal and healthcare standards. Nursing Ethics, 26(1), 71-83. https://doi.org/10.1177/0969733016687162

Strini, V., Schiavolin, R., & Prendin, A. (2021). The Role of the Nurse in Informed Consent to

Treatments: An Observational-Descriptive Study in the Padua Hospital. Clinics and Practice, 11(3), 472-483. https://doi.org/10.3390/clinpract11030063

Walker, S. (2019). Confidentiality and Ethical Practice in Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

Ethics and Social Welfare, 13(3), 302-308. DOI:10.1080/17496535.2019.1649444

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Advanced practice nursing in all specialties is guided by codes of ethics that put the care, rights, duty, health, and safety of the patient first and foremost. PMHNP practice is also guided by ethical codes specifically for psychiatry. These ethical codes are frameworks to guide clinical decision making; they are generally not prescriptive. They also represent the aspirational ideals for the profession. Laws, on the other hand, dictate the requirements that must be followed. In this way, legal codes may be thought to represent the minimum standards of care, and ethics represent the highest goals for care.

For this Discussion, you select a topic that has both legal and ethical implications for PMHNP practice and then perform a literature review on the topic. Your goal will be to identify the most salient legal and ethical facets of the issue for PMHNP practice, and also how these facets differ in the care of adult patients versus children. Keep in mind as you research your issue, that laws differ by state and your clinical practice will be dictated by the laws that govern your state.

RESOURCES

 

Be sure to review the Learning Resources before completing this activity.
Click the weekly resources link to access the resources.

WEEKLY RESOURCES

TO PREPARE

• Select one of the following ethical/legal topics:
  • Autonomy
  • Beneficence
  • Justice
  • Fidelity
  • Veracity
  • Involuntary hospitalization and due process of civil commitment
  • Informed assent/consent and capacity
  • Duty to warn
  • Restraints
  • HIPPA
  • Child and elder abuse reporting
  • Tort law
  • Negligence/malpractice
• In the Walden library, locate a total of four scholarly, professional, or legal resources related to this topic. One should address ethical considerations related to this topic for adults, one should be on ethical considerations related to this topic for children/adolescents, one should be on legal considerations related to this topic for adults, and one should be on legal considerations related to this topic for children/adolescents.

BY DAY 3 OF WEEK 2

Briefly identify the topic you selected. Then, summarize the articles you selected, explaining the most salient ethical and legal issues related to the topic as they concern psychiatric-mental health practice for children/adolescents and for adults. Explain how this information could apply to your clinical practice, including specific implications for practice within your state. Attach the PDFs of your articles.

Read a selection of your colleagues’ responses.

BY DAY 6 OF WEEK 2

Respond to at least two of your colleagues on 2 different days by sharing cultural considerations that may impact the legal or ethical issues present in their articles.

Note: For this Discussion, you are required to complete your initial post before you will be able to view and respond to your colleagues’ postings. Begin by clicking on the Reply button to complete your initial post. Remember, once you click on Post Reply, you cannot delete or edit your own posts and you cannot post anonymously. Please check your post carefully before clicking on Post Reply!

WEEKLY RESOURCES

https://www.nursingworld.org/practice-policy/nursing-excellence/ethics/code-of-ethics-for-nurses/coe-view-only/

http://www.apa.org/ethics/code/

https://www.apna.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageID=3846

https://www.jaacap.org/action/showPdf?pii=S0890-8567%2812%2900500-X

https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/waldenu/detail.action?docID=5108631