Provider-Patient Confidentiality with School-Age Children and Adolescents Custom Essay
Provider-Patient Confidentiality with School-Age Children and Adolescents Custom Essay
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Provider-Patient Confidentiality with School-Age Children and Adolescents
When treating pediatric patients in clinical settings, you also treat patients’ families. With younger patients, this tends to be a seamless process. However, as patients age and grow into the adolescent years, the provider-patient-family relationship becomes more complex. The change in this dynamic often creates questions in provider-patient confidentiality. As the advanced practice nurse providing care for school-age children, adolescents, and their families, how do you handle these confidentiality issues? If a child is a minor, do you have to maintain provider-patient confidentiality? When is it appropriate to allow patients privacy? When is it your legal and ethical duty to involve family members? How do you facilitate the care of a minor when you have to work with parents and still maintain patient trust?
Consider this case study.
Case Study
a 17-year-old girl comes to your office with a complaint of abdominal pain and missed periods. She thinks she may be pregnant. She requests pregnancy testing and does not want you to tell her parents if she is pregnant.