Maintaining Confidentiality in Mental Health Nursing: An Essay

This essay delves into the critical importance of confidentiality within the realm of mental health nursing. It emphasizes the patient's right to privacy and the ethical and legal obligations of healthcare professionals to protect sensitive information. The essay references the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Data Protection Act 1998, highlighting the legal framework surrounding patient data. It explores the significance of building trust through secure information handling and discusses the implications of confidentiality across various patient demographics, including adults, children, and individuals with learning disabilities or mental health conditions. The essay underscores the need for informed consent, the importance of sharing necessary information for treatment while maintaining discretion, and the potential consequences of breaching confidentiality. It concludes by reiterating the fundamental right to confidentiality and its role in fostering trust and positive patient-provider relationships, referencing the chosen article "Legal and Ethical Aspects of Mental Health Care" to support the arguments.

Confidentiality in
Nursing for mental
patients

Contents
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
BODY OF ESSAY .........................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION ..............................................................................................................................5
REFRENCES...................................................................................................................................7
Books and Journal........................................................................................................................7
APPENDIX.....................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
It is vital to maintain confidentiality of a patient as he person has right to privacy and the
information that is related to patient should not be shared without his permission. It is duty of
nursing department to ensure confidentiality of information. The choose article is “Legal and
Ethical Aspects of Mental Health Care” as it will justify the role of nurses of mental health
patients and importance of maintaining confidentiality. The nurses of mental health patients have
ethical responsibility to and legal duty to respect the privacy of the patient. To build relations
with patients there is need to develop trust and that is built through keeping their information
safe and not sharing that with anyone else without the consent of patient. If it is important for
treatment of the patient then the data should be shared by keeping the ethics and principles in
mind (Barnable, Cunning and Parcon, 2018). Below is an academic essay based of
confidentiality that is maintained by mental health nursing department and why that it important
to be maintained. Also there is discussion about the relation of confidentiality with different
people and situation like Mental Health, Adult, Child or Learning Disabilities. In mental health
services it is complex to maintain confidentiality as the family is concerned and the patient is not
in condition of taking the decisions. It is important to share all the information that is required for
the treatment with the patient and to maintain confidentiality by not sharing the data with others.
It is important to maintain records and share only the information that is essential to be shared.
BODY OF ESSAY
As per The Human Rights Act 1998 the patients have right to confidentiality and privacy
that needs to be maintained by all the nurses of mental health patients. Also Data Protection Act
1998 says that it is the right of individual to safeguard the data and have access to all the data
that is related to him and the data should not be communicated to others without the permission
of the person (Surmiak, 2018, September). All the necessary data and information that is
required should be shared with nurses of mental health patients as they have right to know each
and every information. The treatment will only be successful when the nurses of mental health
patients are aware about the problem in a described manner. The patients should express their
emotions in a manner that the doctor is able to understand and take actions and treat the person
accordingly. A patient comes with a hope to nurses and then becomes responsibility of nursing
department. They have to treat him in a way that the person is comfortable in and take care of the

information that is shared by the patient. This is a principle that is followed by nurses of mental
health patients that they keep the data related to the patient secure. By building these kinds of
relations they are able to build trust and treat the society and protect their health. Confidentiality
is seen as a benefit that is given by nurses of mental health patients to their patients and the once
who seek care. Respecting the confidentiality is vital to safe guard the patients and that builds
confidence of patients (Roh and Jang, 2017). The treatment and medical history of patients is
practised by health care team that is physicians and nursing staff, but also with nursing assistants,
administrative personnel and orderlies. So the patients have right to know about how many
people have access to their information. It is obliged by all of them that all the information they
have about the patient should not be discussed in open and communicated to others. The
information and data about the patient is sensitive and if this sensitive information is leaked may
result in loss of opportunity. The person may not be comfortable with doctor and it may harm the
patient. It is against the law so all the information to which the nursing department has access
should be kept confidentially. It is equally important that the patients should have autonomy in
healthcare as they should know the importance of information being shared for their benefit. A
trust should be build and relation between doctor and patient should be there. The patient should
know about the treatment that is to be given to the individual. nurses of mental health patients
have to assure that the individual is having full information and that does not create problem to
them. All the information that a person shares with the doctor must be kept confidential as it is
important to keep all the information of patient confidentially. An adult is a person that can take
all the decisions for himself and all the information related to treatment of the person and the
information that is shared by them to doctor should be kept confidential. If there is requirement
and it is important to share the information related to them there consent should be taken
(Ireland, 2019). If the patient is fine with sharing the information then only the information
should be shared. As it is the right to privacy that is violated if the information is leaked. There
are chances that if the information is told to many people the patient may not feel good and this
may impact more on the health. A child is not capable of taking decisions so all the information
related to the patient's medical health and the treatment that is prescribed should be
communicated to parents or to guardians. This is possible in the case of child as the person is not
able to understand the medical situations and take further decisions. A person who is not
mentally fit should also be treated in same way as other patients and all the information that the

nurses of mental health patients have about the patient should be kept confidential (Escolar-
Chua, 2018). The patient that has mental health problem is also unable to take the decisions
related to treatment so the family can be involved. All the problem and treatment details could be
discussed with the family. It is duty of nurses of mental health patients to safeguard the
information that is provided by the patient and ensure that no one else should have access to
information. The patient is the responsibility of doctor and that the nursing department should
take care (Fowler, 2017). Patient that has learning disabilities is also unable to take decisions
related to the treatment by own so the nurses of mental health patients should inform the person
and take consent to share the information with the person the patient is comfortable. It depends
from person to person that the information about that patient should be shared or not.
Communicating with patients and informing them is beneficial as the person knows about what
is to happen with them, how the information given by them will be used. The samples taken by
them will be used for what type of treatment. If a patient is informed then the individual becomes
more comfortable while treatment. The details that are important to be shared should be shared
by the nurses of mental health patients but not everything as the patient may feel offended and
some may take it in a different way and may hurt the sentiments of the patients. There is chance
that the patient's trust vanishes and the person is unable to take treatment (Rambod, Sharif and
Khademian, 2018). There are situation where there is breach of confidentiality and that is
problematic for both the parties. It is essential legally as well as ethically to maintain
confidentiality of information that is being shared by the patient to the nurses of mental health
patients. The private information of the patients should never be shared with external parties and
it should be taken care that the private information is not discussed at private areas.
CONCLUSION
It can be concluded that confidentiality of information is a right that all the individuals
have. Confidentiality means set of rules according to which the information that is discussed
between patient and health care department should not be disclosed and shared with anyone else.
The law also says that the individual has right to privacy that should not be violated and all the
data that a patient has shared should never be shared with others without consent of the patient.
There is exception when it is important to share the data and it is in favour of patient and the
patient is not in condition than the information must be discussed with family. The main reason
is patient is responsibility of doctor and the doctor must take care of all the information that the

patient has provided. nurses of mental health patients of mental health patients have right to ask
questions and know about all the information and assure that the information is not shared with
others. The main benefit of maintaining confidentiality is its helps in building confidence and
building relations among doctor and patient.

REFRENCES
Books and Journal
Barnable, A., Cunning, G. and Parcon, M., 2018. Nursing students’ perceptions of
confidentiality, accountability, and e-professionalism in relation to facebook. Nurse
Educator, 43(1), pp.28-31.
Surmiak, A.D., 2018, September. Confidentiality in qualitative research involving vulnerable
participants: Researchers' perspectives. In Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum:
Qualitative Social Research (Vol. 19, No. 3).
Roh, Y.S. and Jang, K.I., 2017. Survey of factors influencing learner engagement with
simulation debriefing among nursing students. Nursing & health sciences, 19(4),
pp.485-491.
Ireland, B., 2019. Confidentiality–and the dental nurse. Dental Nursing, 15(1), pp.44-45.
Escolar-Chua, R.L., 2018. Moral sensitivity, moral distress, and moral courage among
baccalaureate Filipino nursing students. Nursing ethics, 25(4), pp.458-469.
Fowler, M.D., 2017. Why the history of nursing ethics matters. Nursing Ethics, 24(3), pp.292-
304.
Rambod, M., Sharif, F. and Khademian, Z., 2018. The impact of the preceptorship program on
self-efficacy and learning outcomes in nursing students. Iranian journal of nursing and
midwifery research, 23(6), p.444.
Online
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6436399/

APPENDIX
The chosen article is “Legal and Ethical Aspects of Mental Health Care” that discusses
the responsibility of nurses of mental health to take care of the information of patient that the
data is not shared with others. There is discussion about the laws that ensure privacy of
information of patients. It is right of individual that all the information and private data that is
shared with nurses is kept secret and is not leaked and discussed with others. To make good
relation with patients and gain confidence it is important for nurses of mental health patients to
share all the information related to their treatment with them. It is also important to take care of
society and keep the information private and share only with the healthcare team. It is duty and
responsibility of nurses of mental health to maintain confidentiality of information.