Ethical Issues in Psychiatry in Southeast Asia: Research and Practice

Abstract

Ethics, competence and autonomy of person with mental illness are dynamic in nature and vary significantly across time. Ethical guidelines are prescribed either by the professional bodies or by the law. Over a period of time ethical obligations are becoming legal obligations, when courts are interpreting the ethical issues related litigations in the court of law. This chapter discusses ethical issues in psychiatry in clinical practice and research separately. Though legal issues are part of ethics at large, the authors in this chapter have focused more on ethical issues. Regarding the ethical issues in authors have discussed on diagnosis, physician patient relationship, involuntary treatment, electro convulsive therapy, confidentiality, informed consent, boundary violations, conflict of interest and ethical issues in day- to-day clinical work. Similarly, ethics in research have been discussed on clinical drug trials and ethics, Ethical issues such as recruitment fees, informed consent related issues, transfer of biological material from developing countries and issues related to role and responsibilities of institutional review board. Finally, authors have discussed on recommendations for medical ethics guidelines for research studies conducted in developing countries sponsored by developed countries.