When a person is diagnosed with a mental illness, should their family be informed?

The family should only be informed by that person. At least that's how I feel.

-Endless

I'm sure glad my family were never informed. it gave me a chance to at least struggle with my demons and try to impale them on the sword of logic.

Well its 2 sided
The family may be a support system. But they also may be the reason why the person has a mental illness

ah yeah!

Research relative to mental illness is so primitive that no effective action has been organized

duh?! yeah!!!

Its a difficult question; because as dorobo says, to NOT have one's family informed means that their attitude to you doesn't change for the worse (as it might do), and you can attempt to master the problem by yourself.
But - there is a case for family being informed, to give information about genetic propensities that maybe they should know.

To my mind, the major thing against that is if a misdiagnosis is made, but it ruins the person's family relationships forever. That shouldn't happen (in the best of families), but it could.

I absolutely agree. Everyone should always be informed of what is going on with their body and mind. The family should be informed as well because they are the main support system for the diagnosed person. This is a controversial issue and I understand both sides. Either way, telling them is the best and open option.

well unfortuatly the phyceatric perfesion is still in the dark ages and there teqnece of diagnosis isnt exact as its just a serious of questions.it is not part of there policy to rule out any other ilnesses or elegic reactions to foods.the persons current life secomstances arnt taken into consideration or there previous life experiance .no phyciatrist in australia trys alturnative method pryer to administirng some very nasty drugs for the treatment wich in most cases leads to basicly a chemical labotomy .never is any new patient told to try vitimans which there are many of that succesfuly teat ,deppression ,anziaty,bia pola .and there are herbs that treat scizofrena.alot of these paitents are defisiant in vitamin or there life is laking perpose .no in most cases they just wack a lable on you and doop u up.i was under phycatric care and i ended up a zobie on dissability.it destroyed my msarrage and my life at the time.i started to susspect that they were wrong in there diagnosis and i tried alturnative methods...guess what they worked far better, walking ,eating ,right ,hobbies ,working on yourself esteam...the list is endless.most phycatrics take aproximatly 45min to diagnose a perfict stanger and now you want the phycatric field to have the power to inform the family?they already heve the right to adminiter electric shock teatment to people .this completly wipe memories away .i once had a phycastrist tell me that all women with bia pola should have historectomys a he sujusted that i do this.i run my own busisness and i have to beautiful children yes i take herbs and vitamins ,walk and meditate ....imagine if i had of listened to that phyciatrist a profesional....like i said the phycatric field is in the dark ages and is barbaric

I dont think the family should be notified..it should be up to the person..there may or not be dispositions to genetically passing it on...unless the person is in danger of harming themselves or others...like if they are violently psychotic delusional schizophrenic then perhaps

because, it's a private issue, and some people are embarrassed, and some people spread tales to too many others, and once it becomes known, nobody treats you like a valualble person any longer your just the weido down the streeet

patients have a right to privacy so no the family should not be informed by anyone but the patient. it goes against medical ethics. your right to know what may or may not happen to you will never go before the patient's right to privacy. so you should just let this one go NowSure.

I guess privacy would be the answer. However, if they were so bad off they were daingerous etc I suppose the family would need to be informed since the person would not be able to take care of them self.
Note: I don't know who the lady is in your avatar but
she is soooo cute!

The family should be. Of course the psychiatrist being sued out the *** for violating doctor-patient privileges isnt worth doing what's right.

This is still a very sensitive topic for a lot of Canadians. This is MY opinion: If someone is diagnosed with a mental illness that can pose a danger to the general public--as well as to themselves--then not only should the family be notified, the general public should be as well.