Overestimating patients’ capacity
Open accessAbstract
Clinicians regularly overestimate patients' capacity to make decisions. This may jeopardise their autonomous decision-making. It may lead to poor clinical outcomes for patients and has potential adverse legal consequences for clinicians. There is a need to use the legal principles of the Mental Capacity Act more rigorously.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Studies have shown physicians frequently disagree on the competency of psychiatric patients who request assisted death - inter-rater reliability of capacity judgments by clinicians without the aid of standardized assessments is low, and modest evidence suggests clinicians tend to overestimate capacity.
“Studies have shown physicians frequently disagree on the competency of psychiatric patients who request assisted death — inter-rater reliability of capacity judgments by clinicians without the aid of standardized assessments is low, and modest evidence suggests clinicians tend to overestimate capacity (6, 47–50).”
From Assisted death in eating disorders: a systematic review of cases and clinical rationales (2024) · cites this paper as [48]
Split into 2 atoms — 1 confirmed, 1 partially supported, 0 disputed, 0 misattributed, 0 unverifiable. Expand the claim to see per-atom verdicts.
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Principles of Biomedical Ethics
(2012) · Thieves of Virtue · doi:10.7551/mitpress/9079.003.0009 · Cited by 13,453 · see citing works
Principles of biomedical ethics
Horton, J. (2002) · Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene · doi:10.1016/s0035-9203(02)90265-8 · Cited by 4,405 · see citing works
Principles of Biomedical Ethics, 5th edn.
Holm, S. (2002) · Journal of Medical Ethics · doi:10.1136/jme.28.5.332-a · Cited by 470 · see citing works
Raymont, V., Bingley, W., Buchanan, A. W., David, A. S., Hayward, P., Wessely, S. C., & Hotopf, M. H. (2004) · The Lancet · doi:10.1016/s0140-6736(04)17224-3 · Cited by 390 · see citing works
Mental capacity in psychiatric patients: Systematic review
Okai, D., Owen, G., McGuire, H., Singh, S., Churchill, R., & Hotopf, M. (2007) · British Journal of Psychiatry · doi:10.1192/bjp.bp.106.035162 · Cited by 262 · see citing works
Owen, G. S., Richardson, G., David, A. S., Szmukler, G., Hayward, P., & Hotopf, M. (2008) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.39580.546597.be · Cited by 172 · see citing works
Prevalence and predictors of mental incapacity in psychiatric in-patients
Cairns, R., Maddock, C., Buchanan, A. W., David, A. S., Hayward, P., Richardson, G., SZMUKLER, G. I., & Hotopf, M. H. (2005) · The British Journal of Psychiatry · doi:10.1192/bjp.187.4.379 · Cited by 165 · see citing works
Retrospective views of psychiatric in-patients regaining mental capacity
Owen, G. S., David, A. S., Hayward, P., Richardson, G., SZMUKLER, G. I., & Hotopf, M. H. (2009) · The British Journal of Psychiatry · doi:10.1192/bjp.bp.109.065151 · Cited by 49 · see citing works
Kahn, D. R., Bourgeois, J. A., Klein, S. C., & Iosif, A.-M. (2009) · The International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine · doi:10.2190/pm.39.4.e · Cited by 21 · see citing works
Mental health law and mental capacity: Dogmaand evidence
Hotopf, M. H. (2006) · Journal of Mental Health · doi:10.1080/09638230500518497 · Cited by 20 · see citing works
Consent in psychiatry – an ethical review
Lepping, P. (2003) · Psychiatric Bulletin · doi:10.1192/pb.27.8.285 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
Self-citationDeprivation of liberty safeguards: how prepared are we?: Table 1
Lepping, P., Sambhi, R. S., & Williams-Jones, K. (2010) · Journal of Medical Ethics · doi:10.1136/jme.2009.032029 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
Self-citationConsent in psychiatry – an ethical review
Lepping, P. (2003) · Psychiatric Bulletin · doi:10.1017/s0955603600002737 · Cited by 11 · see citing works
Self-citation
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Overvaluing autonomous decision-making
Lepping, P., & Raveesh, B. N. (2014) · British Journal of Psychiatry · doi:10.1192/bjp.bp.113.129833 · Cited by 38 · see citing works
Self-citationElzakkers, I. F. F. M., Danner, U. N., Grisso, T., Hoek, H. W., & van Elburg, A. A. (2018) · International Journal of Law and Psychiatry · doi:10.1016/j.ijlp.2018.02.001 · Cited by 30 · see citing works
Assisted death in eating disorders: a systematic review of cases and clinical rationales
Roff, C., & Cook-Cottone, C. (2024) · Frontiers in Psychiatry · doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2024.1431771 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
- Authors
- Lepping, P.
- Affiliations
- Wrexham University (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Lepping, Peter
- ORCID
- Lepping, Peter
- Venue
- British Journal of Psychiatry
- Publisher
- Royal College of Psychiatrists
- Published
- 2011-11
- Volume
- 199
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 355-356
- ISSN
- 0007-1250 (ISSN-L)
- 1472-1465
- OpenAlex
- W2126027875
- Cited by
- 29
- References
- 13
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 5 · 2013: 3 · 2012: 2
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- The British Journal of Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Healthcare Decision-Making and Restraints
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Ethics and bioethics in healthcare
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Ethics and Legal Issues in Pediatric Healthcare
- Keywords
- decision-making capacity, Mental Capacity Act 2005, patient autonomy, informed consent, clinical decision-making, clinical outcomes
- MeSH terms
- Decision Making, England, Humans, Informed Consent, Legislation as Topic, Wales, Mental Competency
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
