Child Confidentiality and Parent Notification

This article discusses the importance of respecting a child's confidentiality in healthcare and the impact of parent notification, particularly in matters of sexual activeness. It also explores the different capacities of children of different ages to make medical decisions and the state of Virginia's laws regarding parent notification.

CHILD CONFIDENTIALITY
CHILD CONFIDENTIALITY
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CHILD CONFIDENTIALITY
Children Confidentiality and Parent Notification
Respect to child’s confidentiality is an important part of delivering good health care.
Confidentiality builds trust that influence how child or young person can seek medical advice or
care. Parent notification has impact to a child confidentiality especially in matters of sexual
activeness (Workowski.,& Bolan, 2015).The following write up discusses whether to inform a
father about his 17 year old childsexually activeness. It also discuss what different it would be if
the child was 11 year or 14 year old and what is my state Virginia law regarding parent
notification.
As a nurse, I am not supposed to give health information to a father about his 17 year old. A 17
year old person is mature enough to take responsibility of their medical decisions and need
consent when disclosing their information. In some states a 17 year old child is still a minor but
are presumed to have capacity to decide on medical issues unless evidence suggest otherwise
(Corsaro, 2017). Therefore, giving the father information about the child sexuality will be breach
of the 17 year old confidentiality.
In a situation where the child is 11 years or 14 years old the parents’ notification consent is not
required. The children of this age need be accompanied by the parent to receive the medical care
as they are presumed they cannot make medical decisions on their own. The father needs to
know the child’s sexual activeness to advice accordingly in the best interest of the child’s health
(Wood et al 2018). Therefore, as a nurse practitioner, I will allow the father to know the state of
the child’s sexual activeness even without the child’s consent.
In the state of Virginia, minors may consent to medical information by themselves if
they are of a certain age group. In Virginia, a person is considered as a minor if they are less than
18 years of age. A 17 year old child is considered to have informed consent about their health
and their confidentiality of medical information cannot be disclosed unless they consent
themselves (Mendelso & Letourneau 2015). This is different to 14 and 11 year old child who are
presumed to have insufficient capacity to make medical decisions. Therefore, parent can get
notification for 11 or 14 year old child about sexual activeness but a nurse practitioner will
require a 17 year old consent to disclose the information.
In summary, children confidentiality is in respect to a child’s age. Children of different age
have different capacity to make medical decisions. Therefore, 17 year old children have
sufficient capacity to make medical decisions and their confidentially should be maintained or
disclosed with consent as compared to 11 and 14 year old children.

CHILD CONFIDENTIALITY
References
Corsaro, W. A. (2017). The sociology of childhood. Sage Publications.
Mendelson, T., & Letourneau, E. J. (2015). Parent-focused prevention of child sexual
abuse. Prevention Science, 16(6), 844-852.
Wood, J. M., Harries, J., Kalichman, M., Kalichman, S., Nkoko, K., & Mathews, C. (2018).
Exploring motivation to notify and barriers to partner notification of sexually transmitted
infections in South Africa: a qualitative study.BMC public health, 18(1), 980.
Workowski, K. A., & Bolan, G. A. (2015). Sexually transmitted diseases treatment guidelines,
2015. MMWR. Recommendations and reports: Morbidity and mortality weekly report.
Recommendations and reports, 64(RR-03), 1.