Ethical and conceptual aspects of capacity assessments in psychiatry

To search the literature on conceptual and assessment issues of patient capacity.

Current literature shows that many instruments have been developed in the last decade to measure patient capacity. Although these measures provide a rank-ordered scale of capacity, they cannot categorize patients into competent and incompetent, which relies heavily on the concept of authentic autonomy. The latter, however, should be carefully examined after considering the patient's cultural and subcultural background, and the quality of the doctor's communication skills.

Academic and clinical psychiatry are posed with such questions as to how to categorically classify capacity and incapacity as well as to evidence the admissibility of measuring instruments when used in a civil commitment.