Involuntary treatment

Involuntary treatment (also referred to by proponents as assisted treatment and by critics as forced drugging) refers to medical treatment undertaken without the consent of the person being treated. Involuntary treatment is permitted by law in some countries when overseen by the judiciary through court orders; other countries defer directly to the medical opinions of doctors.

Some countries have general legislation allowing for any treatment deemed necessary if an individual is unable to consent to a treatment due to lack of capacity,[1][2] other legislation may specifically deal with involuntary psychiatric treatment of individuals who have been diagnosed with a mental disorder.[3] This diagnosis of mental disorders can be carried out by some form clinical practitioner, or in some cases law enforcement or others, to be a danger to themselves or to others is permitted in some jurisdictions, while other jurisdictions have more recently allowed for forced treatment for persons deemed to be "gravely disabled" or asserted to be at risk of psychological deterioration. Such treatment normally happens in a psychiatric hospital after some form of involuntary commitment, though individuals may be compelled to undergo treatment outside of hospitals via outpatient commitment.

History

Man in restraint chair in an English asylum in 1869

In the early 20th many countries passed laws allowing the compulsory sterilization of some women. In the USA more than half the states passed laws allowing the forced sterilization of people with certain illnesses or criminals as well as sterilization based on race.[4] Until 2004, every European state required that transgender people must be sterilized or provably infertile to have their preferred gender formally recognised.[5]: 7  In the UK the 1950s, homosexual men were given the choice between hormone therapy with female sex hormones or prison including, notably, Alan Turing.[6]

An 1853 law in the United Kingdom made vaccination compulsory with those refusing to comply receiving fines.[7]

Forms

Standard modern day restraints

Involuntary treatment can be used to treat a specific disease. In some countries, antipsychotics and sedatives can be forcibly administered to those who are committed, for example for those with psychotic symptoms.[8] Those suffering from anorexia nervosa may receive force-feeding.[9][10] Chemical restraint, such as forcible injection with the antipsychotic haloperidol or benzodiazepine sedative midazolam, may be used to sedate a patient who is agitated.[11]: 624 [12]: 152 

Some countries have general legislation allowing for any treatment deemed necessary if an individual is unable to consent to a treatment due to lack of capacity.[1][2]: 108 

In some countries, involuntary treatment for mental health is not used to treat a symptom that is present, rather to reduce the risk of symptoms returning through the use prophylactic psychotropic medication. This is achieved through the use of outpatient commitment where a patient may be detained in hospital if they fail to take the medication their doctors have prescribed them.[13]: 16  In Czechia, men convicted of sex offenses are in practice given the choice of long-term detention or castration.

Effects

A 2014 Cochrane systematic review of found that compulsory outpatient treatment of those with severe mental health disorders "results in no significant difference in service use, social functioning or quality of life compared with standard voluntary care."[14] A 2006 review found that as many as 48% of respondents did not agree with their treatment, though a majority of people retrospectively agreed that involuntary medication had been in their best interest.[15]

A review in 2011 looked at people's experience of coercion in mental health care. It found common themes of feelings violated, disrespected, and not being heard, commonly conceptualized as being dehumanized through isolation. A minority of narratives from people who had been treated involuntarily talked about the necessity of treatment in retrospect.[lower-alpha 1] Studies suggest that coercion in mental health care has a long-lasting psychological effect on individuals leading to reduced engagement and poorer social outcomes, but that this may be reduced by clinicians knowledge of the effects of coercion.[13] A systematic review and meta synthesis from 2020, that combined the experiences of stakeholders (service-users, informal carers such as family members, and mental health professionals), identified experiences of power imbalances among the stakeholders.[17] The review found that these power imbalances hindered the respect for the service users' rights, will, and preferences.

Prevalence

There is a lot of variation in the rate of involuntary commitment between countries. A review is Europe in 2004 found a thirty-fold difference in the rate of commitment between countries, with the median rate being 74 per hundred thousand people. It is estimated that 38% of people who are involuntarily committed experience another form of compulsion such as seclusion or forced medication.[18]: 2 

Coercion in voluntary mental health treatment

Individuals may be forced to undergo mental health treatment legally-speaking "voluntarily" under the threat of involuntary treatment.[13]: 98  Many individuals who legally would be viewed as receiving mental health treatment voluntarily believe that they have no choice in the matter.[lower-alpha 2] Studies show that 51%, 35% and 29% of mental health patients have experienced some form of informal coercion in the US, England and Switzerland respectively.[13]: 100 

Once voluntarily within a mental health hospital, rules, process, and information-asymmetry can be used to achieve compliance from a person in voluntary treatment. To prevent someone from leaving voluntarily, staff may use stalling tactics made possible by the fact that all doors are locked. For example, the person may be referred to a member of staff who is rarely on the ward, or made to wait until after lunch or a meeting, behaving as if a person in voluntary treatment does not have the right to leave without permission. When the person is able to talk about leaving, the staff may use vague language to imply that the person is required to stay, relying on the fact that people in voluntary treatment do not understand their legal status.[lower-alpha 3]

Szmukler and Appelbaum constructed a hierarchy of types of coercion in mental health care, ranging from persuasion to interpersonal leverage, inducements, threats and compulsory treatment. Here persuasion refers to argument through reason. Forms of coercion that do not use legal compulsion are referred to as informal coercion or leverage.[13]: 98  Interpersonal leverage may arise from the desire to please health workers with whom a relationship has formed. Threats may revolve around a health worker helping or hindering the receipt of government benefits.[21]

Ethics

In medical ethics, involuntary treatment is conceptualized as a form of parens patriae whereby the state takes on the responsibilities of incompetent adults on the basis of the duty to protect and the duty of beneficence (the duty of the state to repair the random harms of nature). The duty to protect is reflected in utilitarianism and communitarianism philosophy, though psychiatrist Paul Chodoff asserted a responsibility to "chasten" this responsibility in light of the political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union.[22]: 82  This duty to protect has been criticized on the grounds that psychiatrists are not effective at predicting violence, and tend to overestimate the risk.[22]: 89 

The obligatory dangerousness criterion is a principle that has been applied to some mental health law that holds that parens patriae should only be applied if an individual is a danger to themselves or others.[23]

Paul Ricœur distinguishes two forms of self, the idem a short term experience of the self and the ipse a longer term persistent experience of the self. In mental illness, the autonomy of the ipse can be undermined by the autonomy of the idem which is at odds with the ipse, so mental health treatment can trade of one form of autonomy against another.[22]: 90 

Sociology

Medical sociology seeks to understand the social processes underlying decisions made in medicine.

Sociologist Jeremy Dixon, speaking in the context of the United Kingdom, argues that assessment and monitoring of risk is a core part of mental health practice[24]: 126  by that this risk is often in conflict with broadly-defined goals of recovery including living a satisfying lives.[24]: 129  He argues that this focus on risk causes mental health professionals to make decisions defensively based on reputational damage if there were to be any inquiry and that multidisciplinary approaches are used for this purpose.[24]: 134  He cites research showing how mental health professionals may seek to shift the burden of responsibility onto individuals noting different behaviours for those with personality disorders because they are viewed as more responsible for their behaviours, or on to other public health services.[24]: 134  Risk assessments themselves are rarely shared with patients.[24]: 135 

Proponents and detractors

Protest graffiti against Involuntary treatment, Turin; TSO = MORTE means Involuntary treatment = Death

Supporters of involuntary treatment include organizations such as the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), the American Psychiatric Association, and the Treatment Advocacy Center.[25]

A number of civil and human rights activists, Anti-psychiatry groups, medical and academic organizations, researchers, and members of the psychiatric survivors movement vigorously oppose involuntary treatment on human rights grounds or on grounds of effectiveness and medical appropriateness, particularly with respect to involuntary administration of mind altering substances, ECT, and psychosurgery. Some criticism has been made regarding cost, as well as of conflicts of interest with the pharmaceutical industry. Critics, such as the New York Civil Liberties Union, have denounced the strong racial and socioeconomic biases in forced treatment orders.[26][27]

Law

United States

Mentally competent patients have a general right to refuse medical treatment.[28][29][30]

All states in the U.S. allow for some form of involuntary treatment for mental illness or erratic behavior for short periods of time under emergency conditions, although criteria vary. Further involuntary treatment outside clear and pressing emergencies where there is asserted to be a threat to public safety usually requires a court order, and all states currently have some process in place to allow this. Since the late 1990s, a growing number of states have adopted Assisted Outpatient Commitment (AOC) laws.[31]

Under assisted outpatient commitment, people committed involuntarily can live outside the psychiatric hospital, sometimes under strict conditions including reporting to mandatory psychiatric appointments, taking psychiatric drugs in the presence of a nursing team, and testing medication blood levels. Forty-five states presently allow for outpatient commitment.[32]

In 1975, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in O'Connor v. Donaldson that involuntary hospitalization and/or treatment violates an individual's civil rights. The individual must be exhibiting behavior that is a danger to themselves or others and a court order must be received for more than a short (e.g. 72-hour) detention. The treatment must take place in the least restrictive setting possible. This ruling has since been watered down through jurisprudence in some respects and strengthened in other respects. Long term "warehousing", through de-institutionalization, declined in the following years, though the number of people receiving involuntary treatment has increased more recently. The statutes vary somewhat from state to state.

In 1979, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit established in Rogers v. Okin that a competent person committed to a psychiatric hospital has the right to refuse treatment in non-emergency situations. The case of Rennie v. Klein established that an involuntarily committed individual has a constitutional right to refuse psychotropic medication without a court order. Rogers v. Okin established the person's right to make treatment decisions so long as they are still presumed competent.

Additional U.S. Supreme Court decisions have added more restraints, and some expansions or effective sanctioning, to involuntary commitment and treatment. Foucha v. Louisiana established the unconstitutionality of the continued commitment of an insanity acquittee who was not suffering from a mental illness. In Jackson v. Indiana the court ruled that a person adjudicated incompetent could not be indefinitely committed. In Perry v. Louisiana the court struck down the forcible medication of a prisoner for the purposes of rendering him competent to be executed. In Riggins v. Nevada the court ruled that a defendant had the right to refuse psychiatric medication while he was on trial, given to mitigate his psychiatric symptoms. Sell v. United States imposed stringent limits on the right of a lower court to order the forcible administration of antipsychotic medication to a criminal defendant who had been determined to be incompetent to stand trial for the sole purpose of making them competent and able to be tried. In Washington v. Harper the Supreme Court upheld the involuntary medication of correctional facility inmates only under certain conditions as determined by established policy and procedures.[33]

See also

  • Coerced abstinence
  • Political abuse of psychiatry (also known as "political psychiatry" and as "punitive psychiatry")
  • Social control
  • Specific jurisdictions' provisions for a temporary detention order for the purpose of mental-health evaluation and possible further voluntary or involuntary commitment:
  • United States of America:

Notable activists

  • Giorgio Antonucci (elimination)
  • Thomas Szasz (elimination)
  • Robert Whitaker (reduction)
  • E. Fuller Torrey (expansion)
  • DJ Jaffe (expansion)

Advocacy organizations

  • Mental Health America (reduction/modification)
  • Mad in America (reduction/elimination)
  • PsychRights (reduction/elimination)
  • Anti-psychiatry, also known as the "anti-psychiatric movement" (reduction/elimination)
  • Citizens Commission on Human Rights (reduction/elimination; founded as a joint effort of the anti-psychiatric Church of Scientology and libertarian mental-health-rights advocate Thomas Szasz)
  • MindFreedom International (reduction/elimination)
  • Treatment Advocacy Center (expansion)
  • Mental Illness Policy (expansion)
  • NAMI (expansion)

Notes

  1. ↑ See table 1 of:[16] "The aspects of care leading to the experience of coercion were broad, but all involved the forcing of “treatment” onto patients against their will. The themes from these articles highlight feelings of violation, disrespect, and not being heard by their clinicians. The most common conceptualization was that of being dehumanized through a loss of normal human interaction and isolation. Using a wide range of thematic analyses, we found that these themes emerged in each article for a range of treatment interventions; this finding was robust. Positive themes were mentioned in three of the five articles from a minority of patients. These tended to emerge in retrospect, well after a patient's hospitalization, and focused on the need or rationale for treatment. These positive themes tended to reflect the social norms and explanations for compulsory care's leading to coercion, rather than the emotive or subjective responses elicited by such care."
  2. ↑ "A significant proportion of voluntarily admitted service userscan experience the same level of perceived coercion as that experienced by involuntarily admitted service users. It needs to be ensured that if any service user, whether voluntary or involuntary, experiences treatment pressures or coercion, that there is sufficient oversight of the practice to ensure that individual's rights are respected."[19]
  3. ↑ See section 6.1 entitled "stalling" in.[20] From this section: "[T]he patient’s mistaken belief that she cannot leave the hospital facilitates the staff’s efforts to stall her. Most importantly, uncertainties regarding formal status make it possible for clinicians to phrase persuasive statements in strategic ways. At times, they might use words that connote coercion where coercion is not formally used. At other times, they might use words of cooperation when formal coercion is in fact applied. Similarly, particular symptoms of the patient, such as a temporary inability to concentrate, might serve as a resource for the staff in managing information in order to accomplish compliance."

References

  1. 1 2 Davidson G, Brophy L, Campbell J, Farrell SJ, Gooding P, O'Brien AM (1 January 2016). "An international comparison of legal frameworks for supported and substitute decision-making in mental health services". International Journal of Law and Psychiatry. 44: 30–40. doi:10.1016/j.ijlp.2015.08.029. hdl:10379/11074. PMID 26318975.
  2. 1 2 Kim SY (2010). Evaluation of Capacity to Consent to Treatment and Research. Oxford University Press, USA. ISBN 978-0-19-532295-8.
  3. ↑ "Mental capacity and mental illness". Mental capacity and mental illness. Retrieved 19 December 2021.
  4. ↑ Patel P (14 July 2017). "Forced sterilization of women as discrimination". Public Health Reviews. 38 (1): 15. doi:10.1186/s40985-017-0060-9. PMC 5809857. PMID 29450087.
  5. ↑ Dunne P (November 2017). "Transgender Sterilisation Requirements in Europe". Medical Law Review. 25 (4): 554–581. doi:10.1093/medlaw/fwx028. PMID 28575446.
  6. ↑ Smith G, Bartlett A, King M (February 2004). "Treatments of homosexuality in Britain since the 1950s--an oral history: the experience of patients". BMJ. 328 (7437): 427. doi:10.1136/bmj.328.427.37984.442419.EE. PMC 344257. PMID 14751920.
  7. ↑ El Amin AN, Parra MT, Kim-Farley R, Fielding JE (June 2012). "Ethical Issues Concerning Vaccination Requirements". Public Health Reviews. 34 (1): 1–20. doi:10.1007/BF03391666. ISSN 2107-6952.
  8. ↑ Smith JP, Herber OR (June 2015). "Ethical issues experienced by mental health nurses in the administration of antipsychotic depot and long-acting intramuscular injections: a qualitative study". International Journal of Mental Health Nursing. 24 (3): 222–230. doi:10.1111/inm.12105. PMID 25394562.
  9. ↑ Túry F, Szalai T, Szumska I (August 2019). "Compulsory treatment in eating disorders: Control, provocation, and the coercion paradox". Journal of Clinical Psychology. 75 (8): 1444–1454. doi:10.1002/jclp.22783. PMID 31004507.
  10. ↑ "Report to the Czech Governmenton the visit to the Czech Republic carried out by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment". p. 15.
  11. ↑ Cameron P, Little M, Mitra B, Deasy C (23 May 2019). Textbook of Adult Emergency Medicine E-Book. Elsevier Health Sciences. ISBN 978-0-7020-7625-1.
  12. ↑ McKnight R, Geddes J (15 May 2019). Psychiatry. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-875400-8.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 Molodynski A, Rugkåsa J, Burns T (2016). Coercion in Community Mental Health Care: International Perspectives. Oxford University Press. p. 289. ISBN 978-0-19-878806-5.
  14. ↑ Kisely SR, Campbell LA, O'Reilly R (March 2017). "Compulsory community and involuntary outpatient treatment for people with severe mental disorders". The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 3 (6): CD004408. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD004408.pub5. PMC 6464695. PMID 28303578. Lay summary. {{cite journal}}: Cite uses deprecated parameter |lay-url= (help)
  15. ↑ Katsakou C, Priebe S (October 2006). "Outcomes of involuntary hospital admission--a review". Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica. 114 (4): 232–241. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0447.2006.00823.x. PMID 16968360. S2CID 20677644.
  16. ↑ Newton-Howes G, Mullen R (May 2011). "Coercion in psychiatric care: systematic review of correlates and themes". Psychiatric Services. 62 (5): 465–470. doi:10.1176/ps.62.5.pss6205_0465. PMID 21532070.
  17. ↑ Sugiura K, Pertega E, Holmberg C (24 November 2020). "Experiences of involuntary psychiatric admission decision-making: a systematic review and meta-synthesis of the perspectives of service users, informal carers, and professionals". International Journal of Law and Psychiatry. 73: 101645. doi:10.1016/j.ijlp.2020.101645. PMID 33246221. S2CID 227190332. Lay summary. {{cite journal}}: Cite uses deprecated parameter |lay-url= (help)
  18. ↑ Sashidharan SP, Mezzina R, Puras D (December 2019). "Reducing coercion in mental healthcare". Epidemiology and Psychiatric Sciences. 28 (6): 605–612. doi:10.1017/S2045796019000350. PMC 7032511. PMID 31284895.
  19. ↑ O'Donoghue B, Roche E, Shannon S, Lyne J, Madigan K, Feeney L (January 2014). "Perceived coercion in voluntary hospital admission". Psychiatry Research. 215 (1): 120–126. doi:10.1016/j.psychres.2013.10.016. PMID 24210740. S2CID 42451989.
  20. ↑ Sjöström S (January 2006). "Invocation of coercion context in compliance communication -- power dynamics in psychiatric care". International Journal of Law and Psychiatry. 29 (1): 36–47. doi:10.1016/j.ijlp.2005.06.001. PMID 16309742.
  21. ↑ Szmukler G, Appelbaum PS (January 2008). "Treatment pressures, leverage, coercion, and compulsion in mental health care". Journal of Mental Health. 17 (3): 233–244. doi:10.1080/09638230802052203. S2CID 144254330.
  22. 1 2 3 Robertson M, Walter G (26 September 2013). Ethics and Mental Health: The Patient, Profession and Community. CRC Press. ISBN 978-1-4441-6865-5.
  23. ↑ Appelbaum PS (1997). "Almost a revolution: an international perspective on the law of involuntary commitment". The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. 25 (2): 135–147. PMID 9213286.
  24. 1 2 3 4 5 Chamberlain JM (19 November 2015). Medicine, Risk, Discourse and Power. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-33196-4.
  25. ↑ Shdaimah C, O'Reilly N. "Understanding US debates surrounding standards in involuntary inpatient psychiatric commitment through the Maryland experience". Social Work in Mental Health.
  26. ↑ New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, Inc., "Implementation of Kendra's Law is Severely Biased" (April 7, 2005) http://nylpi.org/pub/Kendras_Law_04-07-05.pdf Archived 28 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine (PDF)
  27. ↑ [ NYCLU Testimony On Extending Kendra's La NYCLU Testimony On Extending Kendra's Law]
  28. ↑ "The right to refuse treatment: a model act". American Journal of Public Health. 73 (8): 918–921. August 1983. doi:10.2105/AJPH.73.8.918. PMC 1651109. PMID 6869647.
  29. ↑ Kanaboshi N (1 July 2006). "Competent Persons' Constitutional Right to Refuse Medical Treatment in the U.S. and Japan: Application to Japanese Law". Penn State International Law Review. 25 (1): 5.
  30. ↑ "Cruzan v. Director, Missouri Department of Health, (88-1503), 497 U.S. 261 (1990)". www.law.cornell.edu.
  31. ↑ Perlin ML (2003). "Therapeutic jurisprudence and outpatient commitment law: Kendra's Law and case study". Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. 9 (1–2): 183–208. doi:10.1037/1076-8971.9.1-2.183. PMID 16700141.
  32. ↑ "Browse by State".
  33. ↑ "Washington et al., Petitioners v. Walter Harper". Retrieved 10 October 2007.
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