Research Areas

Department Research Areas

• Mental Health & Neuroscience

Jacinta Tan is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist who also has a base degree in philosophy and psychology. She is currently funded by the Wellcome Trust to conduct a validation and dissemination workshops project, 'Closing the loop: interactive dissemination and validation of empirical medical ethics research studies', and has recently been conducting a series of research projects on 'Competence and treatment Decision-Making in Anorexia Nervosa',   funded by a Wellcome Trust Health Services Research Fellowship.

The focus of her research is examining the issues and dilemmas surrounding treatment decision-making, particularly treatment refusal and the use of compulsory treatment, which are relevant to patients, parents and health care professionals in the management of anorexia nervosa. The projects included longitudinal and cross-sectional qualitative studies exploring the issues which young female patients and their parents feel are important, and a postal questionnaire survey of professionals’ views of and attitudes to the issues involved.
Jacinta is the deputy chair of the Oxfordshire Mental Healthcare NHS Trust Clinical Ethics Committee, and a member of the British Medical Journal Ethics Committee. She teaches at the undergraduate and postgraduate level on child psychiatry and mental health ethics.

Jacinta’s areas of interest are: consent and competence in children and adolescents; the development of autonomy in adolescents and young adults; the impact of anorexia nervosa on competence in both adolescents and adults; mental health law and the use of compulsory treatment; and the ethics of compulsory treatment of mental disorders.