Skip Navigation

Institution: CLOCKSS Sign In as Personal Subscriber

Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention Advance Access originally published online on February 20, 2008
Brief Treatment and Crisis Intervention 2008 8(1):5-14; doi:10.1093/brief-treatment/mhm029
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
8/1/5    most recent
mhm029v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Roberts, A. R.
Right arrow Articles by Yeager, K. R.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by Roberts, A. R.
Right arrow Articles by Yeager, K. R.
Social Bookmarking
 Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org.

Avoiding Malpractice Lawsuits by Following Risk Assessment and Suicide Prevention Guidelines

   Albert R. Roberts, PhD
   Ianna Monferrari, BA
   Kenneth R. Yeager, PhD

From the Rutgers University (Roberts, Monferrari) and the Ohio State University School of Medicine (Yeager)

Contact author: Albert R. Roberts, Professor of Criminal Justice and Social Work, Rutgers University, Livingston Campus, Lucy Stone Hall, B-261, 54 Joyce Kilmer Avenue, Piscataway, NJ 08854. E-mail: prof.albertroberts{at}comcast.net

Every 17 min, someone in the United States commits suicide. This equates to 83 suicides every day throughout the year (A. R. Roberts & K. Yeager, 2005). Suicide results in approximately 30,000 reported deaths annually. The loss of a patient to suicide is often a feared outcome among psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and crisis counselors, especially because the law assumes that in most situations suicide is preventable. Suicide accounts for many of the largest monetary settlements and judgments as well as a large proportion of malpractice lawsuits filed against mental health clinicians. Yet, clinician's often lack sufficient education on the legal aspects of malpractice associated with patient suicide. This article reviews several legal cases in which psychiatrists and/or social workers failed to protect patients. This includes failure to conduct a comprehensive biopsychosocial and lethality assessment, failure to warn of imminent risk of suicide, and/or breach of duty to care standards. Each case presentation concludes with recommendations for actions. Next, the article identifies common allegations made in suicide malpractice lawsuits. Conditions necessary to meet the criteria for a malpractice suit are laid out. The article concludes with the authors' guideline (FIKKE) for managing malpractice risk along with a decision-making flowchart designed to reduce a patient's risk of suicide during the treatment process.

KEY WORDS: suicide, malpractice lawsuits, duty to care, lethality assessment, risk factors


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.