A legal opinion's consequences for the stigmatisation of the mentally ill: Case analysis

Abstract

A nearly complete national sample of newsprint including news stories and opinion pieces was collected over one month in New Zealand. This featured the extensively covered release of a legal opinion (Case Note 2049) that a discharged psychiatric patient suffered an interference with his privacy when a nurse had released health information about his risk to the safety of the public. Subsequently the patient committed an act of violence. Discourse analytic techniques involving systematic, repeated, critical viewings were used to identify how the legal opinion was transformed into the media story lines. The Case Note provided a considered legal opinion on how the Privacy Code applied to the release of health information by the nurse using language that was formal, replete with nominalisations and that depicted mental illness generically. The news stories and opinion pieces gave particular prominence to issues of dangerousness. Newsworthiness was also enhanced by naming, and by omitting the vast majority of legal argument These processes undermined the finding that the mentally ill patient had suffered by disclosure of his health information. Aspects of the legal finding and the news media stories contributed to the stigmatisation of the mentally ill. These findings are discussed in relation to how the legal profession could reduce such stigmatising processes.