Importance of Mental State Examination in Mental Health Care

Running head: HEALTH CARE
Health care
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Author’s note

1HEALTH CARE
Description:
I watched a video of a patient requiring completion of a mental state examination. The
video demonstrated interview with Alison, a 38 year old woman who is seeing her GP due to low
mood. She has two children and she is divorced. By watching the strategy used by the GP,
Taylor to complete the mental state examination (MSE) for Alison, I learnt about the important
component of MSE and the key benefits of completing such assessment in mentally ill patient.
Feelings:
I am very much satisfied with the video as watching the interview helped me to collect
cues regarding the important component of MSE. Firstly, I learnt about ways to develop rapport
with client before starting an interview. In addition, when the GP took permission from Alison
regarding asking detailed question from her, I gradually got to learn that the GP was collecting
information related to mood and affect, thought pattern, cognition, memory and concentration.
Mental illness is associated with changes in daily activities and frequency and quality of sleep,
physical appearance and self-care (Sharma et al., 2018). The GP also inquired about these factors
during the interview. By using key element of MSE, the GP was able to collect information
related to mood, energy, motivation, sleep, weight loss, poor concentration and self-care. By
watching the interview, I also came to know about the common symptom of depression when the
GP informed patient about all changes that occur due to depression in affected persons. I am
confident that this knowledge will help me in my future practice.
Evaluation:
By watching the interview, I got to learn about the important factors for conducting a
successful MSE. For example, mood and affect was evaluated by asking question ‘How you have

2HEALTH CARE
been feeling?’ and ‘Do you feel miserable. These questions helped to get subjective and
objective data related to patient’s emotional state. Secondly, I learnt about the purpose of asking
questions like ‘do you have any interest or motivation in life’ or ‘Have you done anything to
harm yourself or other?. This type of question was important to assess thought pattern and
thought content and analyse presence of delusional thinking and flow of thought. The question
can help to record whether the patient has disconnected thought, obsessional thinking and
suicidal ideas or not (Wright, Dave & Dogra, 2017).
The rapport building skills of the GP such as general introduction, taking permission
before detailed inquiry revealed that this is a safe strategy to avoid any confrontation and ensure
that interview proceeds in a smooth manner. Mental state examination (MSE) involves the
systematic step of assessing a persons, appearance, mood, motor activity, speech, thought
process, thought content, insight, judgment, cognition and general behaviour. It is an important
assessment in mental health care to distinguish between cognitive impairment, mood disorder
and other mental illness. It can guide psychiatrist regarding appropriate testing (Matsuzaki et al.,
2015). By watching the video, I learnt how appropriate question can help to get information
related to the above component of MSE. This helped me to learn about the importance of
appropriate inquiry to understand the impact of depression on patient’s functioning and daily life.
The manner in which the interview was conducted, I also got to learn about important
skills for interview. For example, the GP reconfirmed what Alison had said and repeated that she
had low mood, poor energy, sleeping and eating problem, loss of concentration, loss of interest
in normal activities and poor social relationships. I feel reconfirming this was important because
this are important characteristics to confirm diagnosis of mental illness like depression.
According to the DSM IV diagnostic criteria for depression, depressed mood for prolonged