Empowering understanding: navigating consent to ketamine treatment in adolescent mental health.
Frontiers in psychiatry January 1, 2024 Aakash Sathappan, Benjamin Yudkoff 3 citations
Ketamine, which has rapid antidepressant and anti-suicidal effects in adults, is now being considered for adolescents with treatment-resistant depression and suicidality. Obtaining informed consent for this treatment poses unique challenges: clinicians must balance an adolescent's growing autonomy with parental consent, address the drug's potential to induce psychedelic-like effects, and highlight its off-label use and the uncertainty about repeated exposure on the developing brain. The paper also discusses scenarios where parents consent but the adolescent refuses, and alternative treatments like transcranial magnetic stimulation and electroconvulsive therapy. Adherence to informed consent principles is paramount to uphold ethical standards amid ongoing research.