Introduction

Mental health services have been a focus of human rights advocates and recent legal reforms in some Latin American countries, which have called for a change from the paradigm of hospitalization to one of accompanying and supporting the person with mental health issues, which make it possible to apply the Advance Directives in Psychiatry (PADs). This change will require time, as well as economic, material, and human resources, and transformations in attitudes, culture, and society, but the implementation of PADs cannot be postponed: they must be used to protect the autonomy of the persons affected, within a bioethical framework.

Objective

Identify possible bioethical conditions in the prevailing conventional hospital context in Latin America that allow for an implementation of PADs.

Method

A participant-observer study was carried out in two psychiatric hospital services from June to September 2022.

Results

A thematic analysis found three themes: 1) clinical care, 2) patient predisposition, and 3) medical-legal questions. This study considered part of theme 2, including the following sub-themes: a) patient self-perception, b) biography/narrative versus diagnostic classification, and c) negotiation.

Discussion and conclusion

Prominent among the sub-themes discussed are recognition of the values of autonomy and its elements in all of the expressions of the person with mental illness, as well as actions of the physician or health care team in synergy with supported decision-making, a distinctive feature of the anticipatory process of the PAD.