Doctors need to convince the mentally ill for therapy

BGH: no conviction without conviction

To convince a mentally ill patient to consent to medical treatment is only possible without pressure. Only if the persuasive attempt of the attending physicians, "seriously, with the necessary time expenditure and without exercise of unauthorized pressure" has taken place, later a necessary compulsory treatment can be approved, decided the Federal High Court (BGH) in Karlsruhe in a on Thursday, 18. October 2018, published decision (Ref .: XII ZB 87/18).

Mental stress situations increase the risk of heart attack even in healthy people. A conscious handling of (emotional) stress is important for the prevention of cardiovascular diseases. (Image: BillionPhotos.com/fotolia.com)

According to these standards, a woman from Hanover failed because of her chronic paranoid disorder and was unable to recognize her existing physical illness. She therefore also refused to take the necessary anticoagulant drugs that were supposed to prevent atrial fibrillation.

The district court of Hanover ordered the placement in psychiatry and approved after obtaining an opinion, the compulsory treatment. Otherwise, there is an "immediate risk to oneself".

Her beschwendserde directed against this had no success before the BGH. A compulsory treatment is admittedly only allowed if physicians have previously tried to persuade the patient to consent to the therapy. This must be done seriously, with the necessary time and without pressure. However, the doctors in charge complied with this.

Although the district court had only very briefly pointed out that the woman refuses the necessary treatment "despite sufficient attempts at voluntary medication". However, the court had previously obtained a statement from the clinic as to how, in detail, the treating physicians tried to persuade the woman to take the necessary medication on a voluntary basis. After the Karlsruhe decision of 12 September 2018, this was sufficient. fle / mwo