Ethical Issues, Codes, and Standards In Mental Health and Psychiatric Nursing

Ethics in health services-including principles such as beneficence, fidelity, utility, autonomy, and nonmaleficence-is a field where the issue of "values" appearing during medical applications is examined, conflicts are discussed and clarified, and solutions are prepared. Beyond general medical ethics, psychiatry and psychiatric nursing require greater emphasis in determining and implementing ethical principles due to the variance in patient groups. When receiving psychiatric nursing services, the patient may reject one form of treatment or accept another form of treatment that may negatively affect him or her. These characteristics of psychiatric patients can expose them to abuse and neglect, highlighting the need to determine and implement ethical principles in psychiatric nursing. However, ethical principles alone are insufficient, as ethical codes and rules are field-specific. Therefore, ethical codes and rules should be established in conjunction with ethical standards. This article presents the concept of ethics, its historical development, ethical dilemmas experienced in the decision-making process for healthcare providers, ethical dilemmas experienced in the decision-making process for patients and their families, theories and codes, and psychiatric-specific nursing codes and standards.