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What is a mental status exam (MSE)?
What is a mental state exam?
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Apr 30, 2024 · A mental status examination is utilized to determine signs or symptoms of psychiatric disease, diagnose mental illness, and determine the patient's level of severity and disposition.
- Opening The Consultation
- Appearance and Behaviour
- Speech
- Mood and Affect
- Perception
- Cognition
- Insight and Judgement
- Risk
- Closing The Consultation
- References
Wash your hands and don PPEif appropriate. Introduce yourself to the patient including your name and role. Confirm the patient’s name and date of birth. Ask the patient if they’d be happy to talk with you about their current issues.
Observing a patient’s appearance and behaviourcan provide information about their current mental state and risk.
Assess the patient’s speechto identify abnormalities which may indicate underlying mental health issues.
Mood and affectboth relate to emotion, however, they are fundamentally different. Affect represents an immediately expressed and observed emotion(e.g. the patient’s facial expression or overall demeanour). Mood represents a patient’spredominant subjective internal state at any one time as described by them. Affect is what you observe, and mood is w...
Perceptioninvolves the organisation, identification and interpretation of sensory information to understand the world around us. Abnormalities of perception are a feature of several mental health conditions. Abnormalities of perceptioninclude: 1. Hallucinations: a sensory perception without any external stimulation of the relevant sense that the pa...
Cognition is “the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses”. Cognition can be impaired due to mental health conditions and their treatments. Throughout the process of performing a mental state examination, you will develop a vague idea of the patient’s cognitive performance, inclu...
Insight
Insight, in a mental state examination context, refers to the ability of a patient to understand that they have a mental health problem and that what they’re experiencing is abnormal. Several mental health conditions can result in patients losing insight into their problem. Some examples of questions which can be used to assess insightinclude: 1. “What do you think the cause of the problem is?” 2. “Do you think you have a problem at the moment?” 3. “Do you feel you need help with your problem?”
Judgement
Judgementrefers to the ability to make considered decisions or come to a sensible conclusion when presented with information. Judgement can become impaired in several mental health conditions leading to poor decision making. You may gain an understanding of the patient’s judgement abilities as you move through the mental state examination. You can also specifically assess judgement by presenting the patient with a scenario such as: 1. “What would you do if you could smell smoke in your house?...
Assessing risk is an essential part of an MSE. Risk can be subdivided into risk to self and risk to others.
Ask the patient if they have any questions or concernsthat have not been addressed. Thank the patientfor their time.
Murray, R., Hill, P., & McGuffin, P. (Eds.). (1997). The essentials of postgraduate psychiatry. Cambridge University Press.P.J. Mckenna. Disorders with overvalued ideas. Published in December 1984. Available from: [LINK].Soltan, M., & Girguis, J. (2017). How to approach the mental state examination. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 357.- Dr Lewis Potter
Sep 15, 2023 · Healthcare providers use mental status exams to evaluate your mental capacity, which includes cognition, mood, behavior and perceptions. The results of the exam can help point them to a diagnosis of certain mental health or neurological conditions.
Nov 30, 2020 · The Mental Status Examination [MSE], also referred to as Mental State Examination, is an integral and essential skill to develop in a psychiatric evaluation. Conducting an accurate MSE helps elicit signs and symptoms of apparent mental illness and associated risk factors.
Jan 18, 2024 · The Mental Status Exam (MSE) is a systematic way of describing a patient's mental state at the time you were doing a psychiatric assessment. An observant clinician can do a comprehensive mental status exam that helps guide them towards a diagnosis.
May 8, 2017 · A mental state examination (MSE) gives you a snapshot of a patient’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviour at the time of observation. 1 It can help you identify the presence and severity of a variety of mental health conditions and the risk a patient poses to him- or herself, or to others.
The mental status examination is a structured assessment of the patient's behavioral and cognitive functioning. It includes descriptions of the patient's appearance and general behavior, level of consciousness and attentiveness, motor and speech activity, mood and affect, thought and perception, attitude and insight, the reaction evoked in the ...
