[Establishment of compulsory confidentiality in psychiatric practice. II. Establishment of compulsory confidentiality from the viewpoint of the psychiatric patient].

Abstract

The article deals with experience assembled during prestructured interviews with a sample of ambulatory psychiatric patients. The author draws attention to the fact that the sample of patients was little aware of the fact of mandatory medical secret and thus unable to make use of advantages that a significant source of escape of information is medical documentation in the widest sense of the word. Conversely, the trend of social changes will, no doubt, lead to extension and more detailed information of the patient on the nature and prognosis of his disease, as it is the case in advanced countries, whereby the patient will be entitled to decide to whom and to what extent these data on his person will be provided. In future it will be necessary, by developing the legal consciousness of the public, to make people aware of the fact that secrecy on revealed facts is one of the basic legal prerequisites of work in the health services and that the provision of any information to subjects, authorities or institutions without the patient's consent or without restrictions defined by law is not permissible.