Voluntary and involuntary commitment essay
Voluntary and involuntary commitment essay Assignment
Review the Learning Resources concerning voluntary and Involuntary Commitment

PMHNPs may find themselves working in a wide variety of settings—each having their own unique challenges and inherent legal issues. For instance, what do you do in your state of practice when you are providing a therapy/treatment session and a client reports active suicidal ideation? What do you do if you are covering inpatient psychiatric consults and are called to see a patient in the ICU who overdosed on prescription medication requiring intubation? What do you do if you are a PMHNP on an inpatient unit and a client who admitted themselves on a voluntary basis suddenly states that they have decided to sign themselves out of the hospital so that they can go home to kill themselves? These are just some of the legal questions that PMHNPs must know the answers to specific to their state of licensure/practice. Voluntary and involuntary commitment essay.
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In this Assignment, you investigate Texas state’s laws concerning voluntary and involuntary commitment. You also analyze a case to determine if the client is eligible for involuntary commitment.
Scenario for Week 7 Case:
You are a PMHNP working in a large intercity hospital. You receive a call from the answering service informing you that a “stat” consult has been ordered by one of the hospitalists in the ICU. Upon arriving in the ICU, you learn that your consult is a 14 year old male who overdosed on approximately 50 Benadryl (diphenhydramine hydrochloride) tablets in an apparent suicide attempt. At the scene, a suicide note was found indicating that he wanted to die because his girlfriend’s parents felt that their daughter was too young to be “dating.” The client stated in the suicide note that he could not “live without her” and decided to take his own life. Although he has been medically stabilized and admitted to the ICU, he has been refusing to talk with the doctors or nurses. The hospital staff was finally able to get in touch with the clients parents (using contact information retrieved from the 14 year old’s cell phone). Unbeknown to the hospital staff, the parents are divorced, and both showed up at the hospital at approximately the same time, each offering their own perspectives on what ought to be done. The client’s father is demanding that the client be hospitalized because of the suicide, but his mother points out that he does not have “physical custody” of the child. The client’s mother demands that the client be discharged to home with her stating that her son’s actions were nothing more than a “stunt” and “an attempt at manipulating the situation that he didn’t like.” The client’s mother then becomes “nasty” and informs you that she works as a member of the clerical staff for the state board of nursing, and if you fail to discharge her child “right now” she will make you “sorry.” How would you proceed?
The Assignment (write 2 pages):
Based on the scenario, would you recommend that the client be voluntarily committed? Why or why not?

Based on the laws in your state, would the client be eligible for involuntary commitment? Explain why or why not.

Did understanding the state laws confirm or challenge your initial recommendation regarding involuntarily committing the client? Explain.

If the client were not eligible for involuntary commitment, explain what actions you may be able to take to support the parents for or against voluntary commitment.

If the client were not eligible for involuntary commitment, explain what initial actions you may be able to take to begin treating the client. Voluntary and involuntary commitment essay.
 
Voluntary or Involuntary Commitment? The Case of a Suicidal Teenager in the State of Texas
Mental health instability can often lead one to become violent or a risk to themselves and others. This is usually a mental health emergency and the law in every state in the United States recognizes this. The person in question may want to harm others or may want to attempt suicide. To save lives, this kind of person is often committed to inpatient treatment against their will. This is involuntary detention. Of course, when a mentally ill person checks themselves in a mental health facility, that becomes voluntary commitment. This paper is about the action a psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner (PMHNP) can take regarding these two possibilities in the case of a suicidal Texas teenager. Voluntary and involuntary commitment essay.
As a PMHNP, I would be of the opinion that the 14 year-old suicidal teenager in this case study is not eligible for voluntary admission to a mental health facility. Therefore, I would not recommend that he be voluntarily committed. This is because of two reasons. First, the teenager has already demonstrated that they are a danger to themselves since they attempted to kill themselves through a drug overdose. This is one of the reasons the Texas Mental Health Code gives for detaining a mentally ill patient involuntarily (State Bar of Texas, 2008; Barrows Firm, 2016). Secondly, the teenager comes from a dysfunctional family with divorced parents who cannot even agree on the way forward concerning his care. The father, who reasonably wants the teenager to be committed and treated, has no physical custody of the minor. The mother who has physical custody, on the other hand, wants the minor released to go home in his suicidal state. But this is against what the law and best practice dictates.
Based on the law in Texas, this teenager is perfectly eligible for involuntary commitment. The law in Texas states that a mentally ill person who shows that they are a danger to others by, for instance, being violent is eligible for involuntary commitment by direction of the courts. Also, if they are suicidal or have already attempted suicide (as is the case with the teenager in this case study), they are candidates for involuntary admission. This is so that the life of the patient and that of others around them can be saved (State Bar of Texas, 2008; Barrows Firm, 2016; Disability Rights Texas, 2018). As such, the understanding of the law in Texas regarding voluntary and involuntary admission confirms my initial stand that this teenager does not qualify for voluntary admission but is a perfect candidate for involuntary admission. Voluntary and involuntary commitment essay.
If the patient were not eligible for involuntary commitment, I would involve a counsellor to talk to the mother and explain to her the importance of giving consent for her son to be admitted for treatment and observation until he is free of suicidal thoughts. As a professional, the threats from the mother would not deter me from doing the right thing. Doing this would be in line with the Texas Board of Nursing PMHNP Standards of Practice. Therefore, if the client were not eligible for involuntary commitment, one of the first things I would have done would have been to have a physician colleague examine him and give his opinion and recommendations. This is because voluntary commitment status can change at any time to involuntary commitment status and vice versa, depending on the patient’s progress. In the event that the status changes to a need for involuntary commitment, a physician’s opinion is one of the requirements by the courts for granting permission for involuntary commitment (State Bar of Texas, 2008; Barrows Firm, 2016). Voluntary and involuntary commitment essay.
References
Barrows Firm (2016). Involuntary mental health commitments In Texas. Retrieved 10 January 2020 from https://barrowsfirm.com/involuntary-mental-health-commitments-texas/
Disability Rights Texas (2018). Your legal rights under emergency commitment. Retrieved 10 January 2020 from https://www.disabilityrightstx.org/en/handout/your-legal-rights-under-emergency-commitment/
State Bar of Texas (2008). Committed to healing: Involuntary commitment procedures. Retrieved 10 January 2020 from www.texasbar.com  Voluntary and involuntary commitment essay