Citation

Patten JT, Hoag JA, Galtieri LR, Canavera K, Thompson AL. Clin. Pract. Pediatr. Psychol. 2022; 10(3): 346-355.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, American Psychological Association)

DOI

10.1037/cpp0000448

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: Illness remains among the leading causes of death for children in the United States. Bereaved parents are at risk for poor psychosocial outcomes, including suicidal ideation and death by suicide. Although professional ethics and national standards recommend psychosocial care for parents of children with chronic or life-limiting illnesses, there are ethical challenges associated with managing parent suicidality within a pediatric institution.

METHOD: We present two cases illustrating the ethical challenges of responding to suicide risk in parents experiencing bereavement within pediatric institutions. Lack of systematic psychosocial support or standard operating procedures (SOP) in both cases resulted in several ethical concerns and suboptimal clinical care.

RESULTS: We reference the American Psychological Association's Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (American Psychological Association [APA], 2017) and apply an ethical framework (Andrews, 2021) for delivering psychological services to parents in pediatric institutions in these two cases. We describe the ethical challenges of: Conflicting interests of parent and child, multiple relationships, documentation and billing, informed consent, provider competence, and systemic racism within health care and law enforcement when managing suicide risk of grieving parents.

CONCLUSIONS: We discuss practices for the ethical management of suicide risk in parents experiencing bereavement within a pediatric institution. We provide recommendations for clinical practice and organizational policy, as well as strategies to improve assessment and management of parental suicidality and suggestions for future research. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)

Language: en

Keywords

Bereavement; Death and Dying; Ethics; Grief; Parents; Pediatrics; Professional Ethics; Suicidality