Ethical and Legal Foundations of PMHNP Care: Informed Consent Topic Summary

Ethical and Legal Foundations of PMHNP Care: Informed Consent Topic Summary

The topic outlines ensuring informed consent among child and adolescent and adult patients in mental health practice. Mental health practitioners have a responsibility to fulfil their ethical and legal duties by obtaining informed consent when treating clients of different age groups with mental health conditions. Informed consent refers to the process by which a healthcare provider ensures that patients make voluntary and informed decisions on health interventions (Bipeta, 2019). The healthcare provider should educate the patient of the risks, benefits, and alternatives of a given intervention before allowing when to make a final decision. However, parents and guardians have a legal right to consent on behalf of young children and adolescents. Article Summary Ethical Considerations Adult patients need urgent mental health interventions for better treatment outcomes. Blease et al. (2020) examine different perceptions and the understanding of the importance of informed consent among counseling and psychotherapy students. The study reveals mixed perceptions about the need for informed consent. Most clients are unsure about guiding rules and others skeptical about the clinical relevance of the practice (Blease et al., 2020). However, when the students experience the process as clients, they express the need to undergo informed consent. This study demonstrates the ethical dilemma in ensuring informed consent. While the process is an ethical requirement, clients' mixed perceptions about guidelines and the process affect the healthcare provider's ability to implement a treatment plan.  Parents, guardians, and other adults allowed legally can make informed consent decisions for children and adolescents under psychotherapy. One of the most important ethical issues arising from treating minors is the importance of gaining their consent besides the parents' informed consent (Geldard, 2017). Children should also be allowed to understand the counseling services. Another ethical issue arising when ensuring informed consent among minors is conflicting results when two parties are involved. Geldard (2017) considers a situation where a child gives a conflicting result to informed consent or when they enter an intervention with adult supervision. The author advises that in such cases, the psychiatrist should remember that the child benefits from the intervention when they enter voluntarily. Legal Considerations The patient's decision dictates how the healthcare provider approaches the treatment plan. However, decision-making in adult psychotherapy sessions is a challenging situation for the PMHNP. Sometimes the patient may prefer a treatment plan which if pursued may harm the healthcare provider, a third party, or the patient (Darby & Weinstock, 2018). While sound ethical decision-making is essential to astute and compassionate clinical care, the article notes that such challenges provide competing reasons that may affect obtaining fully informed consent. Darby & Weinstock (2018) recommend dialectical principalism which allows practitioners to prioritize conflicting ethics to consider the most ethical approach that safeguards the patient's welfare. Although psychiatrists consider children incapable of making competent decisions, some groups of minors are legally allowed to allow certain medical services without adult supervision. According to Hiriscau et al. (2016), emancipated and mature minors can make informed consent decisions. Emancipated are allowed to make such decisions due to their status. An emancipated minor can be pregnant, enrolled in military service, or financially independent (Hiriscau et al.,  2016). Mature minors are allowed to make treatment decisions if they are older adolescents and capable of consenting to beneficial treatments with little or no health risks. Implications for Practice Being a mental health practitioner, I can apply the ethical and legal considerations concerning informed consent when dealing with adults, minors, and adolescents. The information in these articles allows me to determine the informed consent considerations to make when dealing with patients from both age groups. The information is also important in determining when to make exceptions that may benefit a specific patient by balancing my ethical and legal obligations