The Malpractice Litigations Associated with Psychopharmacological Agent Sand other Issues in Forensic Psychiatry

摘要

The law is about to play an important and persistent role in the practice of psychiatry. The borders between doctor-patient relationships are no longer defined only by the psychiatrist and the patient. Courts, legislatures, and administrative agencies seem to have in?uences on shaping the practice of psychiatry. The awareness of the legal regulation about clinical practice in psychiatry is no longer optional for psychiatrists that seems obligatory. The processes of the law must be integrated with best practices to achieve optimal therapeutic benefits. The clinicians, who had been sued, were significantly more likely to quit seeing certain patients, consider early retirement, and do not support their children to make a career in medicine. The most frequent issue for litigation is the evaluation of suicide attempt and/or completed suicide. Besides, the ineffective treatment of the psychiatric patient and/or the neglect about the clinical care or follow up seem to be the other issues of litigation for malpractice. Nevertheless, some litigations for the causality and prediction such as developing manic excitation after initiating an antidepressant for a depression patient with bipolar affective disorder history might be seen. In addition, insufficient evaluations of hind sight risk factors that lead to murdering as a consequence of such act in a previously incarcerated psychiatric patient should be another issue for litigation as a malpractice. An experienced forensic psychiatrist should investigate a thorough analysis of the case for care and healthcare interventions: (a) duty of care, (b) deviation from the standardized care, (c) damage to the patient or a (d) direct result of the deviation from the standardized care.