ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS OF VIDEO MONITORING PSYCHIATRIC-PATIENTS IN SECLUSION AND RESTRAINT

Video monitoring of psychiatric patients in seclusion and restraint is reviewed from ethical and legal perspectives. Video monitoring invade s privacy beyond patient expectations for routine hospital care and ha s the potential to harm personal dignity. The potential benefit of pat ient safety through monitoring must be balanced with the potential har m of monitoring to provide ethical justification. Because involuntary monitoring places patients in a position of extreme vulnerability to p ersonal exposure, clinicians are obligated to protect these patients, A case illustrating problems with video monitoring along with recommen dations for ethical use of video monitoring are presented in this arti cle. Copyright (C) 1998 by W.B. Saunders Company.