title: Conceptions of decision-making capacity in psychiatry: interviews with Swedish psychiatrists.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Decision-making capacity is a key concept in contemporary healthcare ethics. Previous research has mainly focused on philosophical, conceptual issues or on evaluation of different tools for assessing patients' capacity. The aim of the present study is to investigate how the concept and its normative role are understood in Swedish psychiatric care. Of special interest for present purposes are the relationships between decisional capacity and psychiatric disorders and between health law and practical ethics.
  
  
  METHODS
  Eight in-depth interviews were conducted with Swedish psychiatrists. The interviews were analysed according to descriptive qualitative content analysis in which categories and sub-categories were distilled from the material.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Decision-making capacity was seen as dependent on understanding, insight, evaluation, reasoning, and abilities related to making and communicating a choice. However, also the actual content of the decision was held as relevant. There was an ambivalence regarding the relationship between psychiatric disorders and capacity and a tendency to regard psychiatric patients who made unwise treatment decisions as decisionally incapable. However, in cases relating to patients with somatic illnesses, the assumption was rather that patients who made unwise decisions were imprudent but yet decisionally capable.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The respondents' conceptions of decision-making capacity were mainly in line with standard theories. However, the idea that capacity also includes aspects relating to the content of the decision clearly deviates from the standard view. The tendency to regard imprudent choices by psychiatric patients as betokening lack of decision-making capacity differs from the view taken of such choices in somatic care. This difference merits further investigations.
authors.affiliation: Center for Bioethics, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. manne.sjostrand@ki.se.|Stockholm Centre for Healthcare Ethics, Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. manne.sjostrand@ki.se.
authors.forename: Manne
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sjöstrand
authors.affiliation: Stockholm Centre for Healthcare Ethics, Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. petter.karlsson82@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Petter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Karlsson
authors.affiliation: Academy for Care, Work Life and Welfare, University College of Borås, Borås, Sweden and National Centre for Priority Setting in Health Care, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden. lars.sandman@hb.se.
authors.forename: Lars
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Sandman
authors.affiliation: Stockholm Centre for Healthcare Ethics, Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. gert.helgesson@ki.se.
authors.forename: Gert
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Helgesson
authors.affiliation: Centre for Research Ethics and Bioethics, Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden. stefan.eriksson@crb.uu.se.
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Eriksson
authors.affiliation: Stockholm Centre for Healthcare Ethics, Department of Learning, Informatics, Management and Ethics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden. niklas.juth@ki.se.
authors.forename: Niklas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Juth
mesh_terms: D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D002755:Choice Behavior; D003657:Decision Making; D006801:Humans; D016743:Mental Competency; D001523:Mental Disorders; D011570:Psychiatry; D036301:Qualitative Research; D013548:Sweden