Involuntary Hospitalization of Medical Patients Who Lack Decisional Capacity: An Unresolved Issue

摘要

Psychosomatic-medicine psychiatrists often see patients on medical wards who lack the capacity to make treatment decisions when their refusal of necessary treatment may put their health at risk. Although civil commitment because of mental illness and/or being dangerous has been a statutorily regulated and well-studied practice in general psychiatry, there is currently a dearth of information about the issue of involuntary hospitalization for medical patients seen in consultation-liaison psychiatry whose medical disorders may either transiently or more chronically affect their mental status, leading to psychosis, confusional states, and impaired judgment.