Discussion Post: Ethical and Legal Foundations of PMHNP Care Across the Lifespan
In your role as a PMHNP, you will regularly encounter situations that require your ability to make sound judgments and practice decisions for the safety and well-being of individuals, families, and communities. There may not be a clear-cut answer of how to address the issue, but your ethical decision making must be based on evidence-based practice and what is good, right, and beneficial for patients. You will encounter patients who do not hold your values, but you must remain professional and unbiased in the care you provide to all patients regardless of their background or worldview. You must be prepared to critically analyze ethical situations and develop an appropriate plan of action.
Learning Objectives
a) Analyze salient ethical and legal issues in psychiatric-mental health practice
b) Analyze the impact of cultural considerations on ethical/legal decision making in advanced practice nursing
c) Evaluate mastery of nurse practitioner knowledge in preparation for the nurse practitioner national certification examination.
Reminder: Keep Your Library of Advanced Practice Nursing Texts at Your Fingertips
Several textbooks are assigned in multiple courses in your program. That is, you will see reading assignments from the books assigned in the Learning Resources of more than one course. You should, however, keep all prior textbooks-not just the ones explicitly assigned-readily accessible. The expectation is that you will independently consult these prior textbooks to synthesize information needed to complete your final courses. This is your time to "put it all together" and to more fully embrace the advanced practice nursing role. Part of the responsibility of advanced practice is developing information literacy skills to know where to locate needed information for your clinical practice.
Task
Advanced practice nursing in all specialties is guided by codes of ethics that put the care, rights, duty, health, and safety of the patient first and foremost. PMHNP practice is also guided by ethical codes specifically for psychiatry. These ethical codes are frameworks to guide clinical decision making; they are generally not prescriptive. They also represent the aspirational ideals for the profession. Laws, on the other hand, dictate the requirements that must be followed. In this way, legal codes may be thought to represent the minimum standards of care, and ethics represent the highest goals for care.
For this Discussion, you select a topic that has both legal and ethical implications for PMHNP practice and then perform a literature review on the topic. Your goal will be to identify the most salient legal and ethical facets of the issue for PMHNP practice, and also how these facets differ in the care of adult patients versus children. Keep in mind as you research your issue, that laws differ by state and your clinical practice will be dictated by the laws that govern your state.
To Prepare
A. Select one of the following ethical/legal topics:
a. Autonomy
b. Beneficence
c. Justice
d. Fidelity
e. Veracity
f. Involuntary hospitalization and due process of civil commitment
g. Informed assent/consent and capacity
h. Duty to warn
i. Restraints
j. HIPPA
k. Child and elder abuse reporting
l. Tort law
m. Negligence/malpractice
B. In the Walden library, locate a total of four scholarly, professional, or legal resources related to this topic. One should address ethical considerations related to this topic for adults, one should be on ethical considerations related to this topic for children/adolescents, one should be on legal considerations related to this topic for adults, and one should be on legal considerations related to this topic for children/adolescents.
Briefly identify the topic you selected. Then, summarize the articles you selected, explaining the most salient ethical and legal issues related to the topic as they concern psychiatric-mental health practice for children/adolescents and for adults. Explain how this information could apply to your clinical practice, including specific implications for practice within your state. Attach the PDFs of your articles.
The response should include a reference list. Double-space, using Times New Roman 12 pnt font, one-inch margins, and APA style of writing and citations.
Reference
• American Nurses Association. (2015). Code of ethics for nurses with interpretive statements.
• American Psychological Association. (2017). Ethical principles of psychologists and diagnostic formulation.
• American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. (2014). Code of ethics.
• American Psychiatric Nurses Association. (2020). APRN psychiatric-mental health nursing practice.
• Anderson, S. L. (2012). Practice parameter on gay, lesbian, or bisexual sexual orientation, gender nonconformity, and gender discordance in children and adolescents. American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 51(9). 957-974.
• Hilt, R. J., & Nussbaum, A. M. (2016). DSM-5 pocket guide for child and adolescent mental health. American Psychiatric Association Publishing.
o Chapter 2, "Addressing Behavioral and Mental Problems in Community Settings"
• Thapar, A., Pine, D. S., Leckman, J. F., Scott, S., Snowling, M. J., & Taylor, E. A. (2015). Rutter's child and adolescent psychiatry (6th ed.). Wiley Blackwell.
o Chapter 19, "Legal Issues in the Care and Treatment of Children with Mental Health Problems"
• Zakhari, R. (2020). The psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner certification review manual. Springer.
o Chapter 1, "Preparing to Pass the Psychiatric-Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Certification Exam"