Calculated risk taking in the treatment of suicidal patients: ethical and legal problems

The ethical rationale by which the law permits suicidal patients to be involuntarily confined to institutions, their suicides prevented, and treatment imposed has been much discussed. Economic factors have now made prolonged hospital care almost impossible in the United States. Psychiatrists feel great pressure to discharge suicidal patients from inpatient care. While discharge is therapeutically desirable for some suicidal patients, for others it is not. In the event of postdischarge suicide, the risk of a lawsuit is considerable.