Mental Status Examination
The mental status examination (or mental state examination in the UK and Australia) abbreviated MSE, is another core part of any psychiatric assessment. The MSE is a structured way of describing a patient's current state of mind, under the domains of appearance, attitude, behavior, speech, mood and affect, thought process, thought content, perception, cognition (including for example orientation, memory and concentration), insight and judgement. The purpose of the MSE is to obtain a comprehensive cross-sectional description of the patient's mental state. The data are collected through a combination of direct and indirect means: unstructured observation while obtaining the biographical and social information, focused questions about current symptoms, and formalized psychological tests. As with the psychiatric history, the MSE is prone to errors if cultural differences between the examiner and the patient are not taken into account, as different cultural backgrounds may be associated with different norms of interpersonal behavior and emotional expression. The MSE is not to be confused with the mini-mental state examination (MMSE) which is a brief neuro-psychological screening test for dementia.
Read more about this topic: Psychiatric Assessment
Famous quotes containing the words mental, status and/or examination:
“The pressures of being a parent are equal to any pressure on earth. To be a conscious parent, and really look to that little being’s mental and physical health, is a responsibility which most of us, including me, avoid most of the time because it’s too hard.”
—John Lennon (1940–1980)
“The censorship method ... is that of handing the job over to some frail and erring mortal man, and making him omnipotent on the assumption that his official status will make him infallible and omniscient.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“If we justify war, it is because all peoples always justify the traits of which they find themselves possessed, not because war will bear an objective examination of its merits.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)