Past Issues

Objective: Taiwan’s newly revised Mental Health Act was released on July 4,
2007 and will come into effect on July 4, 2008. Mandatory community treatment
(MCT) is introduced in order to substantiate individual autonomy and personal
protection in community and to enhance preventive mental health. To make MCT
work ethically, it is necessary for Taiwan’s mental health practitioners to understand
ethical issues and empirical data about MCT. The authors intend to review
current arguments on the issues and address their implications for Taiwan. The fi rst
section of the paper explores the concept of MCT and classifi es the types of MCT
as they are related to MCT’s justifi cations. The second section sketches frameworks
for ethics debates on MCT. The third section is a brief review of the effectiveness
of MCT in enhancing care of persons with mental illness in community.
The fourth section delineates the arguments for and against MCT and introduces
relevant empirical fi ndings. The fi nal section concludes that through learning by
doing and continuous regulation impact assessment, we have to do our best to
make MCT work and reduce its potential harms.