Ethical challenges in contemporary psychiatry: an overview and an appraisal of possible strategies and research needs.

Psychiatry shares most ethical issues with other branches of medicine, but also faces special challenges. The Code of Ethics of the World Psychiatric Association offers guidance, but many mental health care professionals are unaware of it and the principles it supports. Furthermore, following codes of ethics is not always sufficient to address ethical dilemmas arising from possible clashes among their principles, and from continuing changes in knowledge, culture, attitudes, and socio-economic context.

Promoting human rights in mental healthcare: beyond the 'Geneva impasse'.

The past decade has seen a significant growth in attention to the human rights of persons with disabilities, taken to include mental health conditions. Consequently, challenges to important areas of current psychiatric practice have emerged, with which the profession has, in general, shown limited engagement.

Opportunities and challenges of self-binding directives: A comparison of empirical research with stakeholders in three European countries.

Background: Self-binding directives (SBDs) are psychiatric advance directives that include a clause in which mental health service users consent in advance to involuntary hospital admission and treatment under specified conditions. Medical ethicists and legal scholars identified various potential benefits of SBDs but have also raised ethical concerns. Until recently, little was known about the views of stakeholders on the opportunities and challenges of SBDs.

Involuntary Detention and Treatment: Are We Edging Toward a "Paradigm Shift"?

Recent challenges to conventional mental health laws concerning involuntary detention and treatment of persons with a mental disorder have led to proposals, or indeed an insistence, that fundamental reform is necessary. A key theme has been the need to eliminate unfair discrimination against people with a mental disorder because their human rights are not respected on an equal basis with other people. Some proposals depart radically from conventional assumptions concerning the justification of involuntary detention and treatment.

"Capacity", "best interests", "will and preferences" and the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

The United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) is the most up-to-date international legal instrument concerning the rights of persons with disabilities. Such persons are taken to include those with serious mental disorders. According to an authoritative interpretation of a crucial Article (Article 12 - Equal recognition before the law) by the UN CRPD Committee, involuntary detention and treatment of people with mental health disabilities are prohibited under the Convention.

Night-time confinement is an unacceptable hospital practice.

SummaryNight-time confinement, currently imposed as a blanket restriction on all patients on wards in UK high secure hospitals, constitutes an arbitrary restriction of liberty, not being based on any therapeutic purpose for those so restricted, nor serving a need for the protection of others. Its imposition constitutes a form of 'degrading' treatment as well as an unjustified restriction of 'residual' liberty. Persons who are vulnerable, especially those who are involuntarily detained as in this case, are particularly at risk of suffering human rights abuses.

The development and validation of the Brief Experience of Caregiving Inventory (BECI).

Background: The social network supporting an individual with psychosis may be adversely affected by the experience of caregiving. The Experience of Caregiving Inventory (ECI) is 66 item self-report measure of the impact of caregiving for carers of people diagnosed with psychotic disorders. This study aimed to create a brief version of the ECI, and evaluate its reliability and validity (n = 626).

Informed, advance refusals of treatment by people with severe mental illness in a randomised controlled trial of joint crisis plans: demand, content and correlates.

Background: In the UK, crisis planning for mental health care should acknowledge the right to make an informed advance treatment refusal under the Mental Capacity Act 2005. Our aims were to estimate the demand for such treatment refusals within a sample of service users who had had a recent hospital admission for psychosis or bipolar disorder, and to examine the relationship between refusals, and service user characteristics.

Methods: To identify refusals we conducted content analysis of Joint Crisis Plans, which are plans formulated by service users and their clinical team with involvement from an external facilitator, and routine care plans in sub-samples from a multi-centre randomised controlled trial of Joint Crisis Plans (plus routine mental health care) versus routine care alone (CRIMSON) in England.

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: 'Rights, will and preferences' in relation to mental health disabilities.

The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities spells out in the most up-to-date and specific manner the rights of persons with disabilities. In doing so the Convention presents serious challenges to many conventional practices in respect of people with disabilities, especially those with mental health disabilities. According to a number of authorities, most notably the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, 'substitute decision-making' is not consistent with the Convention.

We should replace conventional mental health law with capacity-based law.

As general medicine moves away from 'paternalism' and places an increasing emphasis on patient choice and autonomy, George Szmukler and Brendan D. Kelly debate whether conventional mental health legislation should be replaced with a model that focuses on the person's decision-making capabilities.

Impact on the individual: what do patients and carers gain, lose and expect from being involved in research?

Background: Study feasibility and deliverability can benefit from involving patients and carers in the research process, known as patient and public involvement (PPI). There is less evidence on the experiences of patients and carers themselves and we require more information across a range of studies, health conditions and research stages.

Aims: This study explored how patients and carers in eight diagnostic research specialties have been involved in research, their motivations and the impact involvement had on them.

Mental health disabilities and human rights protections.

Background: Around the world, reports regularly expose persistent and systemic human rights violations of patients in mental health services and facilities, and of those who are unable to access needed supports. A number of factors contribute - political will; the range and quality of services available; public and professional attitudes to mental health; stigma; health professionals' training and expertise; and available resources.

Methods: This paper examines one of the main determinants, the legal framework.

Stigma- and non-stigma-related treatment barriers to mental healthcare reported by service users and caregivers.

Delayed treatment seeking for people experiencing symptoms of mental illness is common despite available mental healthcare. Poor outcomes are associated with untreated mental illness and caregivers may eventually need to seek help on the service user's behalf. More attention has recently focused on the role of stigma in delayed treatment seeking.

Barriers to shared decision making in mental health care: qualitative study of the Joint Crisis Plan for psychosis.

Background: Despite increasing calls for shared decision making (SDM), the precise mechanisms for its attainment are unclear. Sharing decisions in mental health care may be especially complex. Fluctuations in service user capacity and significant power differences are particular barriers.

Improving Therapeutic Relationships: Joint Crisis Planning for Individuals With Psychotic Disorders.

Outcomes for individuals with psychosis remain far from acceptable. Recently, prominent psychiatrists have called for an improved understanding of the impact of social contexts, and how social contexts might influence the development and maintenance of mental health problems. A key social context for individuals with psychosis is the therapeutic relationship.

What service users with psychotic disorders want in a mental health crisis or relapse: thematic analysis of joint crisis plans.

Purpose: Recent legislation and guidance in England emphasises the importance of service user choice in care planning. However, it is not obvious how best to facilitate choices in care planning, and some clinicians are concerned that service users may make 'unwise' decisions. This study aimed to examine mental health service users' preferences and priorities in the event of a future mental health crisis or relapse.