Communication Flashcards
You are requested to provide psychological consulting services to the manager of a youth service club based in a small rural town. Internet connexion is not always reliable, and the club manager would like to communicate by regular mouth to discuss her strengths in leadership of the club. She will be presenting a paper on her youth work at an international conference and want you to review to inform her presentation. She suggests email as a way to stay in regular contact and tasks asks you to send her copy of all your notes on file. Summarise your primary concerns regarding communication with the client.
A. Address Internet and email security issues by installing a protection software on your computer.
B. Explicitly place confidential at the top of every email communication sent to the client.
C. Explicitly addressed the issue of confidentiality before consulting with your client.
D. Explicitly insist that the client obtain your permission before citing any material from the client file in her presentation.
E. Explicitly decide not to keep a record of phone calls, text messages, and emails from communicating with the client.
C. is the best response. Client confidentiality and must be protected the psychologist must be proactive and address all issues if there are foreseeable risks of breaches of confidentiality and seek appropriate solutions. The client and psychologist should discuss the matter before commencing the consultancy work. The issues of data security and privacy provisions with regards to food his access to emails come out nights, et cetera, should be discussed.
Which of the following is not correct? Psychological records are seen as adequate if:
A. There is a clean typed copy of treatment notes on file in case you need to go to court and give evidence.
B. There is sufficient detail to enable another psychologist to continue the treatment if you are unable to continue providing psychological service to the client.
C. There is sufficient detail to enable a thorough review of psychological services.
D. Handwritten notes have been converted to electronic form and carefully stored to ensure confidentiality.
E. Case notes stored on file include observations and opinions by the psychologist.
A. is the most appropriate response. Type treatment notes are not the only key consideration when giving evidence in court. Legal considerations are important and contemporaneous handwritten notes have the greatest weight in court and original handwritten notes should be kept in file or scanned for electronic filing when no longer needed.
The APS (2007) code of ethics ensures that psychologists safeguard the confidentiality of information obtained during their provision of psychological service. Which of the following statements does not satisfy this obligation?
A. Psychologist need to maintain confidentiality in the collection, recording, accessing, storage, dissemination, and disposal of information.
B. Psychologists need to protect confidentiality of information after they leave a place of employment or if they stop providing psychological service.
C. Psychologists are ethically responsible for informing clients of the limits to confidentiality, and with safeguarding the confidentiality of psychological assessment data.
D. Records are kept for a minimum of seven years since last client contact unless legal or other organisational requirements specify otherwise.
E. Where a child is younger than 18 years old, psychologist should keep the record until the client reaches the age of 21 years.
E. does not satisfy the APS code of ethics and is the correct answer. Where a child is younger than 18 years old, psychologist should keep the record until the client retains at least 25 years of age.
Written communications are a core component of psychological practise. Psychologists need to understand how to communicate across different audiences for different purposes. Which the following statements is false?
A. At the basic level, report exist for one of two purposes: it is either a treatment report or a third-party report.
B. The psychologist is obligated to keep the language simple, explained terminology, and avoid the use of jargon, no matter what professional qualification of the reader of the report.
C. It is essential that treating practitioners are very careful to avoid commenting beyond their expertise and knowledge.
D. It is essential that all written communication be considered as a report.
E. It is generally advisable in treatment to allow a client to read reports written about them, to allow them to offer comment on fact.
B. is false and is the correct answer. Psychologists should consider the reader of the report, as this will determine the level of jargon and/or technical interpretations permitted in the report. if writing to a psychologist or psychiatrist, frequent use of jog in his highly appropriate. Depending on their professional qualification of the reader of the report, the psychologist is obligated to keep the language simple in terms explained. Therefore, in writing to doctors, social workers, and related health professionals, some psychological terminology is appropriate. However, there is a greater requirement to explain terminology when writing to third parties such as insurance companies, judges, and lawyers in court, and the assumption should be to avoid all terminology that could be misinterpreted.
You work it as part of a multidisciplinary team at a hospital. A provisionally registered psychologist has just commenced under your supervision. Young psychologist is helping to support an older client he had a serious role at home in his working with the client’s family to relocate her to the nursing home. Your mind the new psychologist of the three main principles in the Code of Ethics column respect for their rights and dignity of people in people’s, propriety, and integrity. Why is this issue of concern to the newly registered psychologists?
A. Psychologist should respect client legal and moral rights and their dignity.
B. Psychologists work in diverse roles with a range of different systems and practitioners. It is the responsibility of the psychologist to understand their place in a particular system.
C. It is the obligation of a senior psychologist to ensure newly registered psychologists or provisionally registered psychologists are oriented to systems and familiar with the code of ethics.
D. Psychologists should use language and behaviour that communicates respect to their clients, and this includes older people.
E. Confidentiality is a key issue of consideration. The older person should be informed of confidentiality limits at the start of a professional relationship and as necessary throughout the professional relationship.
A. is the best option. Clients are there right to support them decisions affecting them, including the decision about where live when they return home. Justice, respect, informed consent, privacy, confidentiality, and access to one’s personal information are key concepts.
Which of the following statements about psychologists records is not correct?
A. The confidential client file is sometimes called practitioner notes.
B. The client service record is also referred to as client/patient record.
C. Confidential client file is the sensitive information about their clients and may include psychological testing information but does not include working notes or handwritten sticky notes because it needs to be managed with the strictest of confidence.
D. The confidential client file identifies the client and documents the nature, delivery, progress, results, or recommendations of psychological service.
E. The client service record provides an administrative record of less sensitive information such as the dates and times of service, formal correspondence between third parties, and account information.
C. is the most appropriate response. Move confidential client file is to sensitive information about the clients and may include psychological testing information. They also include appointment diary entries, working nights, assessment material, information stored on computer, and other sticky notes and needs to be managed with the strictest of confidence. Indeed, it can and often does include working nights for hand in sticky notes.
At 4:50 PM on a Friday afternoon, a client rings the office and leaves a message in the state of despair. The psychologist asked the receptionist to ring the client and applies them to attend the emergency department of the local hospital. What records should the psychologist keep in this instance?
A. The psychologist needs to record in a diary or message book the advice given to the client.
B. The psychologist needs to record in a diary or message book the time of phone call received by the client, and advice given to the client.
C. The psychologist records the time the call was received and advice given to the client but doesn’t keep a record of the nature of the phone call received by the client.
D. The psychologist asks the receptionist to record on file the time of phone call received by client and advice given to the client.
E. The psychologist should document the details of the call and advice given first thing on Monday morning.
B. is the best option. The psychologist needs to keep a record of Franco’s, text messages, in emails received by the client and it is appropriate to have a full copy on file rather than having to rely on memory.
Which of the following statements is not true?
A. Where ethics and Common Law are in conflict, Common Law overrides the ethical guidelines. Therefore, mandatory reporting override confidentiality. However, ethically we have a duty to inform clients if their private material is being released or referred to someone.
B. Any decision to override the normal confidentiality needs to be well documented and is likely to be considered with other professionals.
C. Failure to warn if somebody is a very high risk to themselves or to another has serious implications. However, breach of privacy information is also a serious consideration.
D. Clients might seek access to their personal test results under Privacy Legislation or Freedom of Information. The grounds for releasing information vary from system to system, and test documents may be deemed exempt from release on the grounds that disclosure would be contrary to the personal interest of the client.
E. Psychologists should be alert to any inappropriate requests by other professionals to release client test results or personal records. They can refuse to comply with such requests if doing so would be a breach of confidentiality or the provisions of the Privacy Act.
D. is incorrect and therefore is the correct answer as we were asked to identify which is not true. Clients might seek access to their personal test results under privacy legislation or Freedom of Information. The grounds for releasing information very from system to system, and test documents may be deemed exempt on the grounds that disclosure would be contrary to the public interest, not personal interest of the client.
Which of the following approaches will best help to avoid many of the common problems associated with ethical release of information?
A. Psychologists should ensure they gain the prior informed consent of clients to present their personal information to other professionals.
B. Clients should be made aware of any requirement in the organisation to share files and data with other work professionals prior to commencing the psychological service.
C. Psychologists should inform clients of the limits to confidentiality and obtain and document written consent to release any personal information or test results in the client file.
D. De-identifying case information helps to uphold confidentiality.
E. All of the above.
E. is the correct answers all options are true. Options a today are incorrect because there is no one singular approach to avoiding many of the common problems associated with ethical release of information. Each of the points are relevant to the ethical release of confidential information.
Psychologist working in multidisciplinary teams should:
A. Clarify with colleagues the need to safeguard the confidentiality of psychological assessment data.
B. Clarify the nature of information to be shared.
C. Discuss how the information will be shared.
D. All of the above.
E. None of the above.
D. is the correct answer as the first two options are correct and form part of the approach taken by psychologists working in multidisciplinary teams. When considering the ethical release of information, psychologists should (A) clarify with colleagues the need to safeguard the confidentiality of psychological assessment data, (B) clarify the nature of information to be shared, and (C) discuss how the information will be shared.
