Consent
Introduction
A critical contribution to the success of our educational programmes is the willingness of patients to share their experiences with a wider audience. We (and you) are very grateful to them all.
It might be surprising that patients are prepared to take part, but why shouldn't they? After all, we are talking about illnesses. Many people are happy to take part in teaching programmes about physical illness and fundamentally psychiatry is no different. It is quite true that stigma affects mental illness more than physical illness but in some ways I think many patients are ahead of the rest of us in their thinking about this subject.
So how do we obtain informed consent?
We explain that we would like to record an interview with the individual and sometimes with their families and discuss the educational points we want to make. Usually people are very happy to co-operate. We are always concerned that the patient may feel coerced into taking part and discuss this explicitly with them.
Ideally, we want them to feel a sense of ownership about the programme. So at its best, there can even be a therapeutic element to the process. In addition, feeling that others can learn from their experiences is not bad either.
Having recorded the interview, we ask if there is anything in particular they would rather we did not use. Sometimes there can be personal aspects of the history that are more appropriately kept private.
We then go back to the patient some while later and see what their view is. Occasionally, they would rather we did not use the interview or only limited aspects of it and of course we always respect their wishes.
In this way, gaining consent is a process carried out over time.
Dr Andrew Macaulay, MD, MSc., MRCPsych.
Consultant Psychiatrist
macaulay@mentalhealth.tv
This page was last modified on Monday, February 01, 2010 15:27