Competency Testing in Medical and Psychiatric Practice: Legal and Psychological Concepts and Dilemmas
Taking Life and Death Seriously - Bioethics from Japan
ISBN: 978-0-76231-206-1, eISBN: 978-1-84950-343-3
Publication date: 24 August 2005
Abstract
Health professionals are in an ethical dilemma. The patients should be assumed as competent. Involuntary treatment is a violation of human rights. Therefore incompetent patients should be protected. However, one cannot determine a patient's incompetency without testing him/her, which is a violation of the assumption of competency. Thus, we propose two different types of uses for competency tests. One is to measure the appropriateness of information disclosed,but with a poor test result the information should be repeated. Another is to measure the competency of the patients when making major decisions. A poor test result will be followed by the designation of a proxy so that incompetent patients can be protected.
Citation
Kitamura, T. and Kitamura, F. (2005), "Competency Testing in Medical and Psychiatric Practice: Legal and Psychological Concepts and Dilemmas", Takahashi, T. (Ed.) Taking Life and Death Seriously - Bioethics from Japan (Advances in Bioethics, Vol. 8), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 113-138. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1479-3709(05)08805-9
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2005, Emerald Group Publishing Limited