Voluntary and Involuntary Commitment Essay

Posted: December 15th, 2022

Voluntary and Involuntary Commitment Essay

Assignment 1: Practicum Journal: Voluntary and Involuntary Commitment PMHNPs may find themselves working in a wide variety of settings—each having their own unique challenges and inherent legal issues. For instance, what do you do in your state of practice when you are providing a therapy/treatment session and a client reports active suicidal ideation? What do you do if you are covering inpatient psychiatric consults and are called to see a patient in the ICU who overdosed on prescription medication requiring intubation? Voluntary and Involuntary Commitment Essay. What do you do if you are a PMHNP on an inpatient unit and a client who admitted themselves on a voluntary basis suddenly states that they have decided to sign themselves out of the hospital so that they can go home to kill themselves? These are just some of the legal questions that PMHNPs must know the answers to specific to their state of licensure/practice. In this Assignment, you investigate your state’s laws concerning voluntary and involuntary commitment. You also analyze a case to determine if the client is eligible for involuntary commitment. Scenario for Week 7 Case: You are a PMHNP working in a large intercity hospital. You receive a call from the answering service informing you that a “stat” consult has been ordered by one of the hospitalists in the ICU.Upon arriving in the ICU, you learn that your consult is a 14 year old male who overdosed on approximately 50 Benadryl (diphenhydramine hydrochloride) tablets in an apparent suicide attempt. At the scene, a suicide note was found indicating that he wanted to die because his girlfriend’s parents felt that their daughter was too young to be “dating.” The client stated in the suicide note that he could not “live without her” and decided to take his own life.Although he has been medically stabilized and admitted to the ICU, he has been refusing to talk with the doctors or nurses. The hospital staff was finally able to get in touch with the clients parents (using contact information retrieved from the 14 year old’s cell phone). Unbeknown to the hospital staff, the parents are divorced, and both showed up at the hospital at approximately the same time, each offering their own perspectives on what ought to be done. The client’s father is demanding that the client be hospitalized because of the suicide, but his mother points out that he does not have “physical custody” of the child.Voluntary and Involuntary Commitment Essay.  The client’s mother demands that the client be discharged to home with her stating that her son’s actions were nothing more than a “stunt” and “an attempt at manipulating the situation that he didn’t like.” The client’s mother then becomes “nasty” and informs you that she works as a member of the clerical staff for the state board of nursing, and if you fail to discharge her child “right now” she will make you “sorry.” How would you proceed? Learning Objectives Students will: •Evaluate clients for voluntary commitment •Evaluate clients for involuntary commitment based on state laws •Recommend actions for supporting parents of clients not eligible for involuntary commitment •Recommend actions for treating clients not eligible for involuntary commitment To Prepare for this Practicum: •Review the Learning Resources concerning voluntary and involuntary commitment. •Read the Week 7 Scenario in your Learning Resources. •Research your state’s laws concerning voluntary and involuntary commitment. The Assignment (2–3 pages):Voluntary and Involuntary Commitment Essay.  •Based on the scenario, would you recommend that the client be voluntarily committed? Why or why not? •Based on the laws in your state, would the client be eligible for involuntary commitment? Explain why or why not. •Did understanding the state laws confirm or challenge your initial recommendation regarding involuntarily committing the client? Explain. •If the client were not eligible for involuntary commitment, explain what actions you may be able to take to support the parents for or against voluntary commitment. •If the client were not eligible for involuntary commitment, explain what initial actions you may be able to take to begin treating the client.Voluntary and Involuntary Commitment Essay

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Voluntary and Involuntary Commitment

Based on the scenario, would you recommend that the client be voluntarily committed? Why or why not?

The client should be voluntarily committed. This recommendation is based on three reasons. The first reason is that the client is a 14-year-old minor and his parents are available to make the decision on whether or not he should be committed. Using their legal position, his parents can have him committed to ensure that he receives the required health care. The second reason is that the client attempted suicide and there is a possibility that he could attempt another suicide if not provided with health care to address the initial cause of the suicide. The final reason is that the client is not communicative thus necessitating that medical personnel spend more time with him to evaluate his situation. These three reasons support the recommendation to have the client voluntarily committed (Cautin&Lilienfeld, 2015).

Based on the laws in your state (Missouri State), would the client be eligible for involuntary commitment? Explain why or why not.

Missouri State laws sets conditions for psychiatric patients eligibility for involuntary commitment. The laws concede that psychiatric care is largely voluntary, but there are circumstances when patients can be forced to receive care. In this case, involuntary civil commitment is used, whereby a law enforcement officer or a judge is legally permitted to for a patient to be placed under psychiatric evaluation for not more than 96 hours. During that evaluation period, the medical personnel evaluate the patient for risk of self-ham and harm to others. Patients who are determined to presented a high risk of self-harm or harm to others can then be kept under psychiatric care for longer periods of time under the directions of a court. Besides that, the law also allows parents ad legal guardians to make decisions about commitment, although they are required to present their opinions in a probate court hearing where their authority to make commitment decisions for the patient is affirmed. Given these arguments, it is clear that the client is eligible for involuntary commitment (Missouri Department of Mental Health, 2019).Voluntary and Involuntary Commitment Essay

Did understanding the state laws confirm or challenge your initial recommendation regarding involuntarily committing the client? Explain.

Having gone through Missouri State laws governing commitment, I still stand by my initial decision to have the client subjected to voluntary commitment. That is because he is a minor and his parents are present to make the decision on whether or not he should be committed. The parents already have the legal authority to make commitment decisions and do not have to go through a probate court hearing to have their legal authority affirmed since the patient is a minor and is not emancipated. Besides that, should the parents fail to support the decision for voluntary commitment, then the client can be subjected to involuntary commitment by arguing that he is likely harm himself and even harm others if he does not receive the required treatment before discharge (Missouri Department of Mental Health, 2019).

If the client were not eligible for involuntary commitment, explain what actions you may be able to take to support the parents for or against voluntary commitment.

If the client were not eligible for involuntary commitment, then other options would be explored to have him committed. This would entail presenting an argument to support the client’s commitment, and using legal channels to have the client committed. As the legal representative, the parents would be approached first and convinced that additional treatment is necessary. Assuming that the parents have the client’s best interests at heart, then it is not hard to expect them to have the client committed to enable him receive the required treatment and prevent future instances of suicide and the possibility of harming others (Allen & Spitzer, 2015).Voluntary and Involuntary Commitment Essay

If the client were not eligible for involuntary commitment, explain what initial actions you may be able to take to begin treating the client.

If the client were not eligible for involuntary commitment, then four initial actions would be undertaken. The first action is to evaluate the client for risk of harm to himself and others. The second action is to determine the cause of the client’s current suicide attempt. The third action is to inform the parents the results of the evaluation and assessment. The final action is to convince the parents that the client requires additional treatment and monitoring to prevent him from harming himself and others. These actions would support efforts to have the client voluntarily committed for treatment (Wheeler, 2014).Voluntary and Involuntary Commitment Essay

References

Allen, K. & Spitzer, W. (2015). Social work practice in healthcare: advanced approaches and emerging trends. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Cautin, R. &Lilienfeld, S. (2015). The encyclopedia of clinical psychology, volume II Cli-E. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Missouri Department of Mental Health (2019).Frequently asked questions. Retrieved from https://dmh.mo.gov/constituentservices/faq.html

Wheeler, K. (Eds.). (2014). Psychotherapy for the advanced practice psychiatric nurse: a how-to guide for evidence-based practice (2^nded.). New York, NY: Springer Publishing Company. Voluntary and Involuntary Commitment Essay