Counselors are obliged to protect the client’s information because it is confidential. The data can be only be disclosed without his or her consent with sound ethical or legal justifications. Otherwise, the client’s consent is needed in order to reveal any confidential information. The subject of confidentiality is the diagnosis of the disease, health data, prognosis, and all the information that the doctor receives as a result of the examination or when listening to the patient’s complaints. Non-medical information about the patient, his or her relatives, which became known to the doctor in the process of fulfilling his or her duties, should also be confidential.
The legislation defines a fairly narrow range of situations. These include cases where the patient cannot independently express his or her will due to impaired consciousness or due to minority. The law also restricts the effect of the confidentiality rule if there is a threat of the spread of infectious diseases, mass poisoning, or lesions, or if the doctor has reason to believe that the patient’s health disorder was the result of illegal actions. An example would be gunshot or stab wounds. Confidentiality in the relationship between the doctor and the patient is desirable since it is a confirmation and protection of another, more functional value – privacy. This part of the inner world is accessible only to very close people and even partially. In the process of healing, something from the content of the inner world may become known to the doctor for a more effective treatment.