Is Healthcare Responsibility in Patients' Suicide Provable Beyond all Reasonable Doubt? An Analysis of Preventing Strategies and Medical Liability Through a Case Series.
medical liability
prevention
psychiatric patients
suicide
Journal
Clinical neuropsychiatry
ISSN: 2385-0787
Titre abrégé: Clin Neuropsychiatry
Pays: Italy
ID NLM: 101237961
Informations de publication
Date de publication:
Oct 2022
Oct 2022
Historique:
entrez:
7
11
2022
pubmed:
8
11
2022
medline:
8
11
2022
Statut:
ppublish
Résumé
As a result of the duty of care, the healthcare professional has an obligation of surveillance towards the patients that are under their treatment. According to that principle, the Italian Criminal Supreme Court declared a guilty sentence in many cases of psychiatric patients' suicide, recognizing the criminal liability of the healthcare personnel. This is true not only for suicides occurred inside the hospital, but also for the suicide of psychiatric outpatients. Only in a few cases, the Italian Supreme Court acquitted the healthcare personnel. This happened when it was recognized that the suicide event was unavoidable. Despite the fact that suicide risk is often unpredictable, this does not exclude medical liability. In this work we examine the judicial aspects of five cases of suicide of psychiatric patients, considering whether different preventive strategies could have been effective in preventing the suicide event. This work aims to understand whether the suicide of psychiatric patient is effectively preventable and - referring to healthcare responsibility under penal judgment - if that could be proven beyond all reasonable doubt.
Identifiants
pubmed: 36340271
doi: 10.36131/cnfioritieditore20220506
pmc: PMC9597645
doi:
Types de publication
Journal Article
Langues
eng
Pagination
307-313Informations de copyright
© 2022 Giovanni Fioriti Editore s.r.l.
Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts
Competing interests: None.
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