'…In a Format that They Can Actually Utilise Meaningfully' – Psychiatrists' Perceptions of Supported Decision-Making: A Victorian Empirical Study
P Gooding, '“…in a format that they can actually utilise meaningfully” – Psychiatrists’ Perceptions of Supported Decision-Making: A Victorian Empirical Study' (2014) Psychiatry, Psychology and Law.
Posted: 9 Jan 2015 Last revised: 25 Jul 2022
Date Written: December 1, 2014
Abstract
This article examines the views of psychiatrists concerning ‘supported decision-making’ in the operation of mental health law. Supported decision-making is advanced in international human rights law, particularly with regards to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and is being developed at the domestic level in mental health law and policy by governments throughout the world, including in Victoria, Australia. The article draws on qualitative research conducted in the form of interviews with 11 psychiatrists currently working in Victoria. Interviewees tended to endorse supported decision-making, though each participant evidently differed in his or her specific understanding of the term — indicating both a conceptual ambiguity of the term and its relatively little known status among mental health professionals. Nonetheless, the interviews help refine an understanding of the issues likely to arise in efforts to apply the support approach of the CRPD in mental health law, policy and practice.
Keywords: Human Rights Law, Mental health law, Involuntary psychiatric treatment, Mental Health Policy, Mental Health and the Law, Legal Capacity, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Supported Decision Making
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