Global mental health should engage with the ethics of involuntary admission

Global mental health, as a field, has focused on both increasing access to mental health services and promoting human rights. Amidst many successes in engaging with and addressing various human rights violations affecting individuals living with psychosocial disabilities, one human rights challenge...

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Main Author: Wickremsinhe, MN
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: BioMed Central 2021
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author Wickremsinhe, MN
author_facet Wickremsinhe, MN
author_sort Wickremsinhe, MN
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description Global mental health, as a field, has focused on both increasing access to mental health services and promoting human rights. Amidst many successes in engaging with and addressing various human rights violations affecting individuals living with psychosocial disabilities, one human rights challenge remains under-discussed: involuntary inpatient admission for psychiatric care. Global mental health ought to engage proactively with the debate on the ethics of involuntary admission and work to develop a clear position, for three reasons. Firstly, the field promotes models of mental healthcare that are likely to include involuntary admission. Secondly, the field aligns much of its human rights framework with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which opposes the discriminatory use of involuntary admission on the basis of psychosocial disability or impairment. Finally, global mental health, as a field, is uniquely positioned to offer novel contributions to this long-standing debate in clinical ethics by collecting data and conducting analyses across settings. Global mental health should take up involuntary admission as a priority area of engagement, applying its own orientation toward research and advocacy in order to explore the dimensions of when, if ever, involuntary admission may be permissible. Such work stands to offer meaningful contributions to the challenge of involuntary admission.
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spelling oxford-uuid:4eeaf3cb-3734-4d4a-9bd8-4e07856682f02022-03-26T16:04:00ZGlobal mental health should engage with the ethics of involuntary admissionJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_6501uuid:4eeaf3cb-3734-4d4a-9bd8-4e07856682f0EnglishSymplectic ElementsBioMed Central2021Wickremsinhe, MNGlobal mental health, as a field, has focused on both increasing access to mental health services and promoting human rights. Amidst many successes in engaging with and addressing various human rights violations affecting individuals living with psychosocial disabilities, one human rights challenge remains under-discussed: involuntary inpatient admission for psychiatric care. Global mental health ought to engage proactively with the debate on the ethics of involuntary admission and work to develop a clear position, for three reasons. Firstly, the field promotes models of mental healthcare that are likely to include involuntary admission. Secondly, the field aligns much of its human rights framework with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which opposes the discriminatory use of involuntary admission on the basis of psychosocial disability or impairment. Finally, global mental health, as a field, is uniquely positioned to offer novel contributions to this long-standing debate in clinical ethics by collecting data and conducting analyses across settings. Global mental health should take up involuntary admission as a priority area of engagement, applying its own orientation toward research and advocacy in order to explore the dimensions of when, if ever, involuntary admission may be permissible. Such work stands to offer meaningful contributions to the challenge of involuntary admission.
spellingShingle Wickremsinhe, MN
Global mental health should engage with the ethics of involuntary admission
title Global mental health should engage with the ethics of involuntary admission
title_full Global mental health should engage with the ethics of involuntary admission
title_fullStr Global mental health should engage with the ethics of involuntary admission
title_full_unstemmed Global mental health should engage with the ethics of involuntary admission
title_short Global mental health should engage with the ethics of involuntary admission
title_sort global mental health should engage with the ethics of involuntary admission
work_keys_str_mv AT wickremsinhemn globalmentalhealthshouldengagewiththeethicsofinvoluntaryadmission