Patients, Clients, Consumers Oh My!

(source)

I currently work in a long term psychiatric hospital as a psychiatric social worker. It was just a few days ago that a co-worker and I were discussing the issue referring to persons on our ward as "patients" or "residents".

When you work within the mental health system there is a lot of evaluation and paperwork. In charts I have seen the word "patient" and "resident" both used. "Resident" is supposedly more PC but my co-worker and I both agreed that "patient" is more appropriate.

Something I learned long ago is that even though political correct language may be rooted in good, at times it ends up causing one to dance around issues rather than address them directly.

I don't believe that there is anything wrong with being a patient and by insisting that a person is anything else is really reinforcing the stigma that being a patient in a mental hospital is a bad thing.

My co-worker pointed out that if we were treating physical ailments the word "patient" would not seem strange. Why should there be a difference in mental health?

When I worked in an outpatient clinic, patients were referred to as "clients" or "consumers". In some psychiatric hospitals patients are referred to as "individuals".

In my opinion why fix it if it ain't broke?

My belief is that administrators and those higher up are actually giving in to the stigma that there is something wrong with being a mental health patient and therefore PC language is needed to cover up that supposed fact.

I'm always hearing mental health facilities talk about respecting the dignity of the client, patient, consumer, resident, individual. Well, let's do that by being honest rather than sugarcoating in PC language that is not at all helpful.

Patient vs. resident? I vote patient.