Lesson Of The Week - Managing Patients With Deliberate Self Harm Who Refuse Treatment In The Accident And Emergency Department

1 and an appreciable proportion of them refuse urgent medical treatment. Conflict may then arise between a doctor who considers a particular treatment vital and the patient who refuses to consent to it. The doctor has complex clinical, ethical, and medicolegal issues to consider. There are no published data on how doctors in accident and emergency departments in the United Kingdom currently manage these difficult cases. We used a case scenario and devel› oped a questionnaire to investigate how doctors in accident and emergency departments in the Trent region would manage such a situation. Method A scenario was constructed in which a woman who had taken a potentially life threatening drug overdose was brought to an accident and emergency department (box). A series of statements based on essential, decision making steps in her management was developed, and closed questions were used to determine what course of action doctors would take. The scenario and closed question interview style were designed to minimise any misinterpretation. Each of the four interviewers was given specific instructions on the use of the questionnaire and interview technique.