Sharing responsibility for at-risk children & youth: Finding morally credible solutions within constrained services.
Published: 2006
Language: eng
Number of pages: 189
ISBN-13: 9780494219935
Other titles: Sharing responsibility for at-risk children and youth
Description: Determining level of risk and need for hospitalization in children and adolescents presenting with psychiatric emergencies is an important, yet challenging task for crisis workers. To better understand how clinicians act for the "good" of these patients, narrative stories of clinical situations were gathered through small group interviews with crisis workers from three urban hospitals. These stories were analyzed using interpretive phenomenological methods. Findings supported the notion that clinical assessments are interpretive encounters, whereby clinicians moderate scientific and experiential knowledge with personal information about the patient to understand and manage the risk present in the clinical situation. While clinicians are typically drawn to respond to vulnerable patients in helpful ways, this study revealed that their decisions and actions were affected by the context in which assessments occur, and by available resources. As a result, clinicians could not always act in the ways they deemed to be most helpful. When this happened, crisis workers compensated by finding "morally credible solutions" within the given circumstances and available resources.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 68-01, Section: B, page: 0215.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Toronto, 2006.

Electronic version licensed for access by U. of T. users.