Strengthening the psychiatric advance directive system in New Zealand: Allowing the mentally ill to help themselves

Psychiatric advance directives (PADs) are an emerging method for adults with serious and persistent mental illness to manage their treatment by documenting treatment preferences in advance of periods of incapacity. However, the application of PADs has largely been neglected by the legal and psychiatric discourse in New Zealand. This paper presents some of the key purposes and unrealised benefits of PADs, and explains why New Zealand’s law and policy surrounding advance directives in the mental health arena is unclear compared to other jurisdictions. Though interviews conducted with New Zealand clinicians and consumer advocates, key practical and legal dilemmas around forming, monitoring, and enforcing PADs were extracted and dissected. Interviews elucidated that, while attitudes were generally positive attitude towards PADs in the mental health system, the lack of a focused PAD strategy stifled its promulgation where it could most benefit service users. This paper proposes that PADs should be promoted, and articulates a normative PAD strategy for New Zealand.