Legal and Ethical Responsibilities of Nurses in Seeking Consent from Mental Health Patients

Running head:CLINICAL INTEGRATION SPECIALTY PRACTICE
Clinical integration specialty practice
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1CLINICAL INTEGRATION SPECIALTY PRACTICE
Introduction
Patients suffering from mental health illness have always been vulnerable to breaching of
the rights and the responsibilities. These patients are often not involve in the decision making
process and deprived of the basic patient rights like autonomy, informed decision making and
informed consent (Nishimura et al., 2013). Informed consent should require special importance
in psychiatry as in many cases patient might not have the capacity to make mental health care
and the treatment decisions. This paper will discuss about the ethical and the legal responsibility
of the nurses in seeking consent from the mental health patients.
Legal responsibilities of the nurses
Informed consent can be referred to as a formal permission that has to be sought the
before commencing a medical treatment to any patients suffering from mental health illness. As
per the Mental health Act 2014, consent should be taken from a patient, if they have the capacity
for giving an informed consent to the treatment or the medical treatment, or if they had been
provided with adequate information for making an informed decision, or if the patient had given
consent freely without any undue pressure or coercion by any other person (Victoria, State
government, 2017). Nurses are accountable to respect the confidentiality and the privacy of the
patient by seeking informed consent. Nurses have the legal obligations to gain a hand written or
legal consent from mental health patients(Nishimura et al., 2013).
As per the mental health laws of each of the state and territory. The laws ensures, that
their dignity is respected, ensure that they receive the best possible professional care and
cooperate as far as possible with the care and the treatment. It has been argued by Nijhawan et

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al., (2015), that patients with psychiatric illness or other cognitive disorder do not have the
capacity to take decision of their own. In such cases, it is the duty of the nurses to understand
whether the patient had understood the rationale behind the informed consent (Surman, 2013,
November). Whenever possible nurses should quote the responses of the patient to assess
whether the patient had assessed the condition of the patient. In case the patient is incapable to
provide an informed consent, then according to the mental health power of attorney, a patient
representative can be chosen to give the consent. It should be mentioned that informed consent
provides autonomy to the patient to make their own decisions(Surman, 2013, November).
Patients are in the receiving sides and hence are susceptible to many malpractices, thus an
informed consent might act as a medical document that can be used during litigation. According
to the Mental health act, a patient might withdraw consent at any time and the treatment should
then stop and appropriate procedures have to be followed.
Ethical responsibility of the nurses in seeking consent
Ethical consideration of nursing care process is an important aspect while providing
effective care in mental healthcare process. Ethics in mental healthcare process helps to add
fairness and equity in the care process and hence, patients are able to achieve mental healthcare
irrespective of their disability, socio- economic status, ethnicity and other factors (Marrone,
2016). As per majority of the patients affected with mental health concerns are unable to provide
their consent as they are not mentally able to understand the risk and benefits they would achieve
while receiving care (Rubin, 2014). This is because the patient would not be able to provide their
nod to the treatment process, and could not be able to assess the risks, alternative treatment and
procedure of the interventions. Hence, the nursing professionals should implement ethical