Projects
- ENSURE
- HumanMeD
- Psychiatric Advance Directives
- SALUS (BMBF Research Group)
- Collaborations
- Past Projects
- Past collaborations
ENSURE
Enhancing the Informed Consent Process: Supported decision-making and capacity assessment in clinical dementia research
Funding:
ENSURE is funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF).
Grant number: 01GP1623B
Duration: 2016-2019
Summary:
As a result of an ageing population, the already high number of people suffering from dementia will significantly increase in European countries in the coming decades. For this reason, there is a substantial need for further medical dementia research. People with dementia have the right to decide whether or not they want to participate in clinical research on the basis of their free informed consent. High standards for the informed consent process and the assessment of decision-making capacity are important to protect potential research participants.
ENSURE is an international and interdisciplinary collaboration involving the following project partners:
- The Frankfurt Forum for Interdisciplinary Ageing Research, Goethe University Frankfurt
- The Institute for Bioethics, Catholic University of Portugal
- The Department of Philosophy of Law, School of Law, University of A Coruña
ENSURE involves researchers from gerontology, psychology, psychiatry, law and medical ethics. The project aims to enhance the capacity to consent of people with dementia, to improve the assessment of decision-making capacity, to protect those who do not have the capacity to consent, and to ensure that the inclusion of people with dementia in neuroscientific and medical research is ethically justifiable. The Bochum subproject focuses on ethical and conceptual questions regarding informed consent and decision-making capacity.
Within the thematic context of ENSURE, Jochen Vollmann and Jakov Gather serve as trustees and Matthé Scholten as an expert of the German Academy for Ethics in Medicine for the AMWF S2 clinical guideline “Informed consent to medical treatment for persons with dementia.”
Jochen Vollmann serves as a member of the working group “Ethics and Law” for the DGPPN S3 clinical guideline “Prevention of and Intervention with Aggressive Behavior.”
Researchers:
- Jakov Gather (PI)
- Matthé Scholten
- Jochen Vollmann (PI)
HumanMeD
Human rights and mental health: Implementing the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in mental health care - An international and interdisciplinary workshop
Funding:
HumanMeD is funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF).
Grant number: 01GP1884
Duration: 2018-2020
Project description:
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2006 and entered into force in 2008. By now, 177 states parties have ratified the convention. The implementation of the CRPD will have far-reaching consequences for the provision of health care for persons with mental disorders. This workshop brings together early career scholars, experts, policy-makers, service users and other stakeholders from Germany, Ireland and the United Kingdom to critically assess the implementation process of the CRPD in these jurisdictions. The central question it addresses is how the CRPD can be implemented in the context of health care so as to promote the autonomy of persons with mental disorders and guarantee their equal treatment.
The workshop pursues the following aims:
- Defining the basic concepts and outlining the ethical and legal framework
- Determining whether the provisions for involuntary commitment and involuntary treatment in the respective jurisdictions constitute discrimination on the basis of disability
- Assessing the opportunities and risks of supported decision-making
- Making recommendations for the implementation of the CRPD in the context of mental health care
Researchers:
Psychiatric Advance Directives
Project description:
Advance directives are documents that enable patients to articulate their treatment choices for later periods of incompetence. In psychiatry, advance directives are particularly helpful for service users who suffer from disorders that may entail recurrent phases of temporary incompetence, such as bipolar, depressive and schizophrenic disorders. Psychiatric advance directives can strengthen the autonomy of psychiatric service users and increase their share in medical decision-making. In addition, they can lead to a reduction of involuntary treatment and coercion rates.
The implementation of psychiatric advance directives raises several fundamental ethical concerns. How, for example, should mental health professionals deal with advance directives in which patients indiscriminately reject all forms of psychiatric treatment? Should psychiatric advance directives be revocable at any time or should psychiatric service users have the right to exclude the possibility of revocation under conditions of incompetence?
Besides the ethical questions that arise in the context of advance directives, their implementation in clinical practice also raises several empirical issues. Although many psychiatric service users express interest in advance directives, in practice few of these documents are actually completed. This may be caused by barriers to the implementation of psychiatric advance directives such as limited time resources in psychiatric practice and lack of access to completed directives.
A dissertation project will identify the institutional barriers and difficulties in the implementation process of advance directives. By means of a nationwide quantitative questionnaire, the attitudes, knowledge and experience of psychiatrists with regard to various forms of psychiatric advance care planning will be investigated. The data will be analyzed by means of descriptive statistics.
Researchers:
SALUS (BMBF Research Group)
The ethics of coercion: Striking a balance between autonomy, well-being and security in psychiatric practice
Funding:
SALUS is funded by the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) as an independent research group in the field of ethical, legal and social aspects of modern life sciences.
Grant number: 01GP1792
Duration: 2018-2024
The SALUS project is carried out in close cooperation with the Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Preventive Medicine, LWL University Hospital, Ruhr University Bochum.
Project desciption:
The use of coercion in the treatment of persons with mental disorders is one of the major ethical controversies in psychiatry. The aim of SALUS is to determine whether considerations of well-being and security can justify coercive interventions and to investigate whether potential conflicts between autonomy, well-being and security can be prevented by considering the latter two values in the advance care planning process. To this end, we will
- identify consequences of recent autonomy-enhancing policies for the well-being of service users and the security of third parties,
- examine the attitudes of mental health professionals, service users and the general public toward coercion in psychiatry,
- determine conditions under which coercive interventions can be morally justified,
- improve psychiatric advance directives by including considerations of well-being and security in the advance care planning process, and
- assess and evaluate the opportunities and challenges of self-binding directives.
The SALUS project takes a bottom-up approach in which conceptual and normative analyses are informed by and closely interlinked with qualitative and quantitative empirical research.
Researchers:
- Simone Efkemann (LWL University Hospital)
- Jakov Gather (PI)
- Astrid Gieselmann
- Laura van Melle
- Sarah Potthoff
- Matthé Scholten
- Anna Werning (LWL University Hospital)
Project website:
https://bochum-salus-project.com/
Collaborations
Task-Force "Psychiatry and Palliative Medicine"
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gerontopsychiatrie und -psychotherapie (DGGPP), Deutsche Gesellschaft für Palliativmedizin (DGP) und Deutsche Gesellschaft für Psychiatrie und Psychotherapie, Psychosomatik und Nervenheilkunde (DGPPN)
Jochen Vollmann
2017-
AMWF S2 Clinical Guideline “Informed consent to medical treatment for persons with dementia”
Jakov Gather and Jochen Vollmann: respresentative of the AEM and member of the expert and author group
Astrid Gieselmann and Matthé Scholten: member of the expert and author group
Past Projects
Ethical expertise in clinical practice: An empirical-ethical inquiry into normative competence in value conflicts in psychiatry
FoRUM, Ruhr University Bochum
Researchers: Joschka Haltaufderheide and Jochen Vollmann
2017-2018
Winter school: Beneficial coercion in medicine? Foundations, areas of conflict, prevention
German Ministry of Education and Research
Grant program ethical, legal and social aspects of the modern life sciences
Researchers: Jakov Gather, Tanja Henking, Alexa Nossek and Jochen Vollmann
2016-2017
Implementation and evaluation of advance directives in the hospital
German Ministry of Education and Research
Grant number: 1711701
Jochen Vollmann
2001-2003
Ethicists and Practitioners in Collaboration on Capacity (EPICC)
European Commission
European Fifth Framework
Grant number: QLG6-CT-2001-00037
Jochen Vollmann
2002-2003
Empirical studies on competence and the process of informed consent for mentally disordered persons
German Research Foundation (DFG)
Grant number: Vo 625/2-1
Jochen Vollmann
1998-2001
Ethical, legal, and social aspects of brain research
European Commission
Biotechnology Program (BIOTECH II)
Grant number: BIOTECH 2B104 CT97 2264
Jochen Vollmann
1997-1999
Ethical problems concerning informed consent in health care, as exemplified by persons with dementia
German Research Foundation (DFG)
Grant number: Vo 625/1-3
Jochen Vollmann
1994-1996
Past collaborations
DGPPN S3 Clinical guideline "Prevention und Intervention in case of aggressive behavior"
Menmber for ethics and law
Jochen Vollmann
2015-2018
Ex-In
LWL inclusion project: Employment of qualified peer support workers in psychiatric acute hospitals – implementation and ethical evaluation
Ex-In was funded by the Regional Association of Westphalia-Lippe (LWL) and was carried out by the Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Preventive Medicine of the Ruhr University Bochum. The Institute for Medical Ethics and History of Medicine was a collaboration partner.
Researchers: Jakov Gather, Alexa Nossek and Ina Otte
2015-2017
Open doors
Effects of open-door policies in acute psychiatry on coercion and perceived coercion – clinical and ethical aspects
This project is funded by the medical faculty of the Ruhr University Bochum (FoRUM) and was carried out by the Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Preventive Medicine of the Ruhr University Bochum (Jakov Gather and Georg Juckel). The Institute for Medical Ethics and History of Medicine was a collaboration partner in the qualitative empirical subproject.
Researchers: Jakov Gather and Ina Otte
2016-2017
Reduction of coercion
Qualitative interviews with police officers as a part of a state-wide enquiry into the views of all stakeholders in mental health services.
This project was part of the ZWARED project, funded by the Ministry of Health, Equalities, Care and Ageing (MGEPA) of the federal state Nordrhein-Westfalen and carried out by the Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Preventive Medicine of the Ruhr University Bochum. The Institute for Medical Ethics and History of Medicine was a collaboration partner
Researchers: Jakov Gather and Ina Otte
2016-2017
Volkswagen Foundation research project "Enhancement of competence to consent to treatment by means of resource-oriented communication (EmMa)"
Advisory Board
Jochen Vollmann
2011-2017
Task Force "Ethics in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy"
German Association for Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics (DGPPN)
Chair
Jochen Vollmann
2013-2014
Respect for autonomy and the use of coercion with regard to the treatment of mentally disordered persons. A position paper of the DGPPN
German Association for Psychiatry, Psychotherapyand Psychosomatics (DGPPN)
Jochen Vollmann: Chair of the task force “Ethics in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy” and first author
Jakov Gather: Member of the task force “Ethics in Psychiatry and Psychotherapy” and co-author
2012-2014
Dementia Ethics Steering Committee
Alzheimer Europe
Jochen Vollmann
2010-2014
Medical Ethics Committee of the World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry
Secretary
Jochen Vollmann
2001-2005