Cronicon OPEN ACCESS PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY PSYCHOLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY Review Article Ethical Principles in Psychiatric Practice: A Systematic Review Michael Atakora 1 * and Emmanuel Asampong 2 1 Department of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway 2 Department of Behavioural Sciences, School of Public Health, University of Ghana, Legon Citation: Michael Atakora and Emmanuel Asampong. “Ethical Principles in Psychiatric Practice: A Systematic Review”. EC Psychology and Psychiatry 9.8 (2020): 34-43. *Corresponding Author: Michael Atakora, Department of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway. E-mail: Michael.atakora1@outlook.com Received: May 27, 2020; Published: July 13, 2020 Keywords: Ethical Principles; Confidentiality; Honesty and Trust; Autonomy and Informed Consent; Decision-Making Capacity Introduction: Ethical principles play a significant role in the psychiatric practice as it influences the pattern of services. Ethical prin- ciples are likely to affect not only the clinical traditions and the service organizational structure and functioning in psychiatry, but also the expression and the interpretation of mental illness. Ethical differences create difficulties and problems related to the use of diagnosis, decision-making in diagnosis, and description of treatments on international levels in psychiatric practice. Procedure: The search of available literature uncovered 35 published articles between 1978 and 2015. Twenty-one articles were excluded, and fourteen articles were reviewed. Results: Topics reviewed included confidentiality, honesty and trust, autonomy and informed consent, decision-making capacity, as well as involuntary psychiatric treatment. The reviewed studies were small in scale and are limited in generalizability. The ac- ceptance and applicability of the ethical principles are contextual due to difference in cultural or religious beliefs, economic status, political ideologies, geographical differences as well as differences in societal norms. It is challenging for universally acceptable ethi- cal principles in psychiatric practice due to social differences. Common challenges of addressing the issues about ethical principles may be altered by cultural or religious beliefs, the political ideologies among countries, economic status, geographical locations, and the norms societies. Conclusion: Comparative studies on the perceptions of mental health professionals regarding the ethical principles in psychiatric practice will serve as an important platform to provide contextual information on the ethical principles in psychiatric practice. A detailed assessment of the factors influencing ethical principles will also be a significant step Abstract Introduction According to the World Health Organization (WHO), mental health is ‘a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and can make a contribution to his or her commu- nity’ [1]. The European Mental Health Declaration also states that the promotion of mental health is a priority for the WHO and the estab- lishment of coordination across regions and countries is considered a means to improve mental health delivery. Also, further development of mental health services should be based upon the awareness of each country’s existing needs and resources [2,3]. However, the WHO has ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7163-2601