A qualitative exploration of mental health nurses’ decision-making processes regarding confidentiality and disclosure of patient information

Abstract

Mental health nurses have a duty of confidentiality to their patients. However, they routinely face difficult decisions regarding confidentiality and disclosure of patient information, when patients are assessed as a potential credible risk to self or others. At common law, there is a public interest in protecting patient confidentiality, and a competing public interest in disclosing relevant confidential information to protect the patient or others from harm. Unfortunately, confidentiality and risk-actuated public interest disclosure-related decision-making is poorly understood by mental health nurses. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to explore these decision-making processes of mental health nurses, with a view to considering how their knowledge and practice of this important area of nursing can be improved.