ETHICAL ISSUES OF SCHIZOPHRENIC PATIENT CARE IN SELANGOR MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT CENTRES: AN OBSERVATION

Abstract

Schizophrenia is a state of mental or emotional disorder experienced by a person. The characteristic of this disease is that the patient will lose consciousness and experience personality changes. In addition, schizophrenic patients typically hearing sounds, illusions, and emotional disorders. So far, the quality of treatment of schizophrenic patients has improved, but the patient's condition does not show parallel changes. One of the interesting and important issues to discuss is ethics in treating Schizophrenic patients. The objective of this study is to identify ethical violations at the HA Care Centre in Kuala Lumpur. This study used a direct observation method involving a total of 9 centre staff (4 medical staff, 5 support staff) and 15 patients suffering from schizophrenia. The patients involved in this study were patients who had undergone treatment in a mental illness hospital but had not fully recovered. Findings show that there are some ethical violations in the treatment centre where medical and support staff look down on patients, insensitive to patients’ needs and feelings, and abuse patients verbally and physically. The staff at the treatment centre have different educational backgrounds and experiences, and only one of them has experience working in a mental hospital as a nurse. This study concludes that ethical violations occur due to a lack of awareness and understanding of ethics in treating mental patients.