Medication refusal: suggestions for intervention

The civil rights and deinstitutionalization movements of the 1960s gave rise to legal and ethical challenges to the physician's authority to prescribe psychoactive medication to patients who refuse such medication. While no definitive legal ruling has been rendered in this area--and may never be rendered--a review of the important cases to date identifies consistent themes of patient competency, the possibility of physical threat, risks versus benefits, due process, and patient advocacy, all of which form the framework for intervening with patients who choose to refuse medication while preserving their right to do so.