The Competence of Adolescents to Consent to Treatment

An issue that faces adolescent psychiatrists is the assessment of an adolescent's competence to consent to treatment. In his seminal article, Dr. Richard Rosner (1999) provided a four-step approach to forensic evaluations (see also Rosner, this volume). He described the assessment of an adolescent's competence to stand trial as an example of how to use that model. The applicability of this model extends to many forensic issues.