PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Swartz, Marvin S.
TI  - What Constitutes a Psychiatric Emergency: Clinical and Legal Dimensions
DP  - 1987 Mar 01
TA  - Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online
PG  - 57--68
VI  - 15
IP  - 1
4099  - http://jaapl.org/content/15/1/57.short
4100  - http://jaapl.org/content/15/1/57.full
SO  - J Am Acad Psychiatry Law1987 Mar 01; 15
AB  - In true medical emergencies, informed consent is presumed or implied without application of the usual standard. In the litigation over the right to refuse treatment in psychiatry, a limited right for involuntarily committed patients to refuse treatment has been upheld, absent a finding of a psychiatric emergency. Increasingly, clinicians may find that their sole extrajudicial option in instituting treatment over the patient's objection is in invoking a psychiatric emergency. The purpose of this communication is to discuss the clinical and legal issues in defining and invoking a psychiatric emergency in treatment refusal. The substantive and procedural issues in the use of the emergency exception in treatment refusal are discussed with recommendations for their use in clinical practice.