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Context In the exercise of his practice, the psychiatrist is commonly called upon to assess the suicidal risk of a patient and may, under the circumstances, engage his professional liability and become the subject of a civil suit in the event of the death of the patient. Despite the existence of guidelines and tools for the assessment and management of suicide risk, the practice often remains unstandardized. Few studies have focused on the assessment and management of this risk from a legal perspective. Some knowledge of case law could be useful to psychiatrists in making future decisions, both from a medico-legal point of view and to improve the care offered. Objectives This article aims to study the civil liability of the psychiatrist following the suicide of a patient by analyzing Canadian case law from a perspective of continuous improvement of practice with particular attention to the assessment and management of suicide risk. Method A systematic review of the judgments was carried out on CanLII.org, a virtual library of Canadian legal information allowing access to the judgments rendered by the courts of first instance, the Courts of Appeal as well as those of the Supreme Court of Canada. The search strategy consisted in using the key words "suicide," "psychiatrie," "faute" and "responsabilité" as well as their English translation to retain the recourses where a judgment was rendered by the court and where at least one psychiatrist acted as a defendant or co-defendant following the suicide of a patient. Results Nine judgments met our inclusion criteria. Since elements were of interest for our research question, it seemed wise to us to also include three decisions where the patient did not die of his suicidal attempt but kept significant sequelae. The analysis of the judgments made it possible to identify the alleged faults most often reproached to the psychiatrist by the plaintiff and to present the usual position of the courts, and the arguments which underlie them. The alleged faults can be grouped into three categories: an assessment of the suicide risk deemed faulty, a management of the suicide risk by supervisory measures deemed faulty and an omission to have used legal custody measures when they should have been applied. In nearly all cases, Canadian courts render a decision in favor of the psychiatrist, demonstrating sensitivity to the reality of psychiatrists' practice. The recommendations resulting from our analysis of Canadian case law support the guidelines of the American Psychiatric Association and the Ontario Hospital Association practice guidelines for suicide risk assessment and management, particularly in terms of the content of evaluation, specific moments of re-evaluation and documentation. Conclusion Knowledge of Canadian case law on civil liability for the suicide of a patient represents an additional asset for the practice of responsible and quality psychiatry.
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Psiquiatria , Suicídio , Humanos , Estados Unidos , Psiquiatras , Responsabilidade Legal , OntárioRESUMO
Scholars have linked cost and life stress to lower voter turnout with clear implications for voting during the COVID-19 pandemic. We ask whether COVID-19 reduces turnout intention and how election agencies can mitigate this effect. We use a series of six survey and conjoint experiments implemented in samples totalling over 28,000 Canadian respondents collected between July and November of 2020 to show that: 1) priming people to think about COVID-19 reduces turnout intention, especially among those who feel most threatened by the disease; 2) safety measures for in-person voting, such as mandatory masks and physical distancing, can improve safety perceptions and willingness to vote in-person, and 3) providing people information about safety precautions for in-person voting mitigates the negative effect of priming COVID-19. These studies illustrate the importance of both the implementation and communication of measures by election agencies designed to make people safe - and feel safe - while voting in-person.
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The COVID-19 public health pandemic has seen governments spend trillions of dollars to limit the spread of the COVID-19 virus as well as to soften the economic blow from the shutting down of national economies. Subsequent budget shortfalls raise the question of how governments will pay for the direct and indirect costs associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article, we study the public's willingness to contribute through paying a new tax, with a focus on Canada. We find that both generalized social and political trust are associated with a greater willingness to support a COVID-related tax and that generalized social trust, in particular, attenuates the negative effect of an experimentally manipulated, specified level of tax burden on policy support. These findings entail important implications for the public opinion and tax policies literature, as well as for policy makers. RELATED ARTICLES: Gainous, Jason, Stephen C. Craig, and Michael D. Martinez. 2008. "Social Welfare Attitudes and Ambivalence about the Role of Government." Politics & Policy 36 (6): 972-1004. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2008.00147 Shock, David R. 2013. "The Significance of Opposition Entrepreneurs on Local Sales Tax Referendum Outcomes." Politics & Policy 41 (4): 588-614. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12028 Wagle, Udaya R. 2013. "The Heterogeneity Politics of the Welfare State: Changing Population Heterogeneity and Welfare State Policies in High-Income OECD Countries, 1980-2005." Politics & Policy 41 (6): 947-984. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12053.
VOLUNTAD DE LOS CIUDADANOS PARA APOYAR NUEVOS IMPUESTOS PARA LAS MEDIDAS COVID19 Y EL PAPEL DE LA CONFIANZA: La pandemia de salud pública COVID19 hizo que los gobiernos gastaran billones de dólares para limitar la propagación del virus COVID19, así como para suavizar el golpe económico del cierre de las economías nacionales. Los posteriores déficits presupuestarios plantean la cuestión de cómo pagarán los gobiernos los costos directos e indirectos asociados con la pandemia de COVID19. En este documento, estudiamos la disposición del público a contribuir mediante el pago de un nuevo impuesto. Encontramos que tanto la confianza social como política generalizada se asocian con una mayor disposición a apoyar un impuesto relacionado con COVID y que la confianza social generalizada en particular atenúa el efecto negativo de un nivel especificado de carga tributaria manipulado experimentalmente sobre el apoyo a las políticas. Estos hallazgos tienen implicaciones importantes para la opinión pública y la literatura sobre políticas fiscales, y también para los responsables de la formulación de políticas.