Reporting of use of coercive measures from a Dutch perspective
| Pages | 65-73 |
| Published date | 06 March 2017 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/AMHID-11-2016-0039 |
| Date | 06 March 2017 |
| Author | Brenda Frederiks,Baukje Schippers,Moniek Huijs,Sofie Steen |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care,Learning & intellectual disabilities |
Reporting of use of coercive measures
from a Dutch perspective
Brenda Frederiks, Baukje Schippers, Moniek Huijs and Sofie Steen
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to advance a number of outlooks on the reporting of the use of
coercive measures in the care for persons with intellectual disabilities. The following questions will be
discussed: which forms of involuntary care should be externally reported and how is this external reporting
influenced by environmental and other factors?
Design/methodology/approach –This paper describes an important part of the New Dutch Care and
Coercion Act (Wet zorg en dwang) concerning reporting the use of coercive measures. The implications of
reporting the use of coercive measures have been discussed at a meeting for experts in mental health law
and the care of people with an intellectual disability. The issue has been presented to the participants as
neutrally as possible, so as to provide the researchers a comprehensive picture of the different views on
reporting the use of coercive measures. The outcome of this meeting has served as the input for a further
step in the research –using the Delphi method –in order to address the issue comprehensively.
Findings –The Dutch legislation on reporting involuntary care implies that measures carried out only in the
face of resistance should be externally reported. The experts that participated in this study endorse the
importance of a real-time external reporting system. They believe that standardized and reliable external
reporting requires involuntary care, the categories of involuntary care and the environmental and other factors
that affect external reporting to be defined more concretely. They regard environmental and other factors as
decisive for assessing whether a measure constitutes involuntary care. This in turn, therefore, has
consequences for whether such incidents should be reported.
Research limitations/implications –Many concepts in the new Dutch Care and Coercion Act (Wet zorg
en dwang) are not formally defined. Instead, the legislator has left it to those in the field to decide how
they should be interpreted. This prompted many questions from those attending the expert meeting and in
our own analysis. The researchers could possibly have resolved this confusion during the meeting by
formulating more detailed definitions of terms such as “resistance”and “involuntary care”beforehand.
The disadvantage of this, however, would have been that those attending the meeting would have had no
opportunity to define the terms on the basis of their own expertise. As a result, the researchers have obtained
all relevant information comprehensively to use as the input for the next step of the research, which employs
the Delphi method.
Practical implications –This viewpoint emphasises the need to take a wide range of factors into account
throughout the process in order to establish whether care can be seen as involuntary. The researchers regard
the care providers’expertise in dealing with these factors –client factors, and behavioural or environmental
factors, for example –as being of essential importance if care is to be recognised as involuntary and reported
as effectively as possible. Therefore, the researchers discuss whether the legal position of clients is protected
if care providers register only those forms of involuntary care where there is obvious resistance. In this case,
many forms of resistance are overlooked, which may be to the detriment of the legal protection of clients with
intellectual disabilities. However, the system in the UK shows that it can be quite complicated to develop a
clear definition of involuntary care that is usable in practice, without giving rise to an enormous
amount of bureaucracy and thus distracting from the real issue: protecting the legal position of clients with an
intellectual disability.
Originality/value –Academic papers clearly demonstrate that external reporting of involuntary care has not
yet become properly established, either in the Netherlands or elsewhere, such as in the UK. This paper seeks
to provide insights into new Dutch legislation about external reporting of involuntary care. By organising a
meeting with experts, the factors that have so far acted as obstacles in the reporting of involuntary care are
problematized. The findings of this paper will help to further the process of developing an effective system for
reporting involuntary care.
Keywords Reporting, Coercive, Measures, Disability, Law, Intellectual
Paper type Viewpoint
Received 28 November 2016
Revised 9 March 2017
Accepted 6 April 2017
Brenda Frederiks is an
Assistant Professor at the
VU University Medical Center
Amsterdam Public Health
Research Institute, Department
of Public and Occupational
Health, Amsterdam,
The Netherlands.
Baukje Schippers is a
Behavioural Scientist at the
Department of Clinical Child
and Family Studies,
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam,
Amsterdam,
The Netherlands.
Moniek Huijs is a Junior
Researcher at the VU University
Medical Center Amsterdam
Public Health Research
Institute, Department of Public
and Occupational Health,
Amsterdam,
The Netherlands.
Sofie Steen is based at the VU
University Medical Center
Amsterdam Public Health
Research Institute, Department
of Public and Occupational
Health, Amsterdam,
The Netherlands.
DOI 10.1108/AMHID-11-2016-0039 VOL. 11 NO. 2 2017, pp.65-73, © Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 2044-1282
j
ADVANCESIN MENTAL HEALTH AND INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES
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