Empirical assessment of competency to consent to psychiatric hospitalization.

The authors used an interview questionnaire to assess competency to consent to voluntary admission in a group of 50 newly admitted psychiatric patients. Using a number of alternative definitions of competency with this sample of patients tested shortly after admission, they found that a majority of patients appeared to have severe impairment of competency. These results suggest limitations in the applicability of the legal model of informed consent to the psychiatric setting.