Mental State Assessment and Care Planning

This document provides information about the process of mental state assessment and care planning in different healthcare contexts. It explains the importance of assessing a person's mental state and supporting their recovery. The document also discusses the criteria for assessing mental health needs, principles of equity, rights, and access, and the use of evidence, information literacy skills, and written presentation in mental state assessment. It includes a workbook with questions and instructions for mental health assessment and strategies for working with people with mental illness.

HLT301,Semester 1, 2019
Assessment Task3Workbook 60 Marks
Description
This task provides you with an opportunity to develop and demonstrate knowledge of processes
associated with assessing a person’s mental state in different health care contexts, and supporting
the person to navigate to a place of recovery.
Assessment Criteria
The workbook responses will be assessed according to the following criteria:
 Use of evidence to interpret and analyse the mental state assessment, including an
assessment of risk
 Interpret and use evidence to plan care to support the mental health needs of the person in
diverse health settings
 Critical appraisal of principles of equity, rights and access
 Information literacy skills: use of sources and citations
 Written presentation including structure, grammar, application of referencing protocol
Harvard
Workbook Format
The workbook contains10questions about mental health assessment, and strategies to work with
people with mental illness. You must adhere to the word limit provided for each response.
Workbook Instructions
 Watch the video titled “Psychiatric Interview for teaching: Depression” that can be found in
the Assessment Folder on Blackboardhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YhpWZCdiZc
 Answer each question in the workbook template using the space provided as they relate to
this video.
 The template is set at 1 ½ line spacing and Calibri font size 11. Do not change the formatting.
 You are required to respond to the questions in your own words. Do not use direct quotes.
 Each question includes a guide for the maximum number of words expected for the
response. Keep within this word limit.
Supporting literature to answer the questions:
For each answer, provide in text citations(references) that demonstrate you have used the most
appropriate source for your response e.g. policy documents, journal article, textbook etc. You must
include at least one citation(reference) for each answer, and you are expected to use a variety of
sources eg textbook, journal articles, credible websites etc.
Reference List:
At the end of the paper you need to provide the full reference details, in alphabetical order, of each
citation(reference) you have used in your responses. You are asked to use the Harvard Referencing
style according to the guide provided by USC.
You will find the guide by going to Portal – USC Community – Academic skills – Referencing.
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The completed workbook assignment will contribute to 40% of your overall grade mark and is due
on FridayMay 31, 2019 (5 pm)
HLT301Assessment Task 2: Workbook 40%
1. Define a mental state assessment and describe why it is a useful tool in understanding
a person’s emotional and cognitive functioning (100 words)
/6 marks
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The mental state assessment is a structural process that helps to analyze the cognitive
and behavioral functioning of the patients upon whom the assessment method is
conducted (Thagard and Larocque 2018). The primary purpose of this mental state
assessment is to conduct a cross sectional analysis of the patient’s mental state so that
their coherent treatment could be conducted. The behavioral functioning of the patient is
conducted through the description of the patient’s general behavior, their attentiveness
and consciousness, their appearance, their attitude, speech, and insightful activities,
whereas, alertness, memory, and reasoning abilities help to determine the cognitive
functioning of the patients (Jeon et al. 2015).
2. Describe Alison’s appearance and behaviour (100 words)
Appearance and behavior are two crucial aspects which the psychiatrists observe while
providing care to the patients involved in the care process (van den Brink et al. 2018). In
the psychiatric interview related assessment, the patient Alison wells, she appeared timid
and miserable. She appeared depressed and was constantly avoiding eye contact. Her hair
was messy and she appeared less interested in the interview session. Her behavior, on
the other hand, was reflecting from her lack of confidence, her lack of gait, and her
inability to make eye contact. Further, it was seen that she is constantly becoming tearful
and constantly picking her nails, that indicates towards her inability to be confident and
made her nervous.
/5 marks
3. Differentiate between mood and affect, and then describe affect as it relates to Alison.
(100 words)
/3 marks
Mood and affect are two primary aspects of mental state assessment method and as
mentioned by both of these are interrelated despite of its differences. Mood is the
sustained and holistic emotion that stays for a prolonged period of time and affects the
perception of the individual suffering from it, whereas, affect is the immediate emotion
that also represents mood (Kaplan et al. 2016). In case of Alison, her facial expressions
and her overall demeanour loudly mentions of her tearfulness, sorrow and frustration of
not being able to fix her life on her own.
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4. Discuss Alison’s speech. (50 words)
/3 marks
Alison’s speech was full of small phrases, long pauses and constant sense of tearfulness
due to which she was unable to frame her words to develop an effective sentence.
Similarly, as mentioned in Northcott et al. (2017), her tearfulness affected her speech due
to which she took time to reply to the questions of the physicians while conduction of the
psychiatric interview process.
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5. What physiological signs or symptoms associated with a depressive episode can you identify
in the interview with Alison? (100 words)
/4 marks
While conducting the mental state assessment process with Alison, a series of symptom
appeared that indicated to the fact that she is suffering from the depression condition. The first
sign and symptom was associated with her improper mood and affect that made her tearful and
nervous. Further, she also mentioned that she lacked concentration and due to this she is
becoming unable to focus on her kids and their concerns that clearly indicate her diversion of
thoughts. Finally, she appeared tensed and fearful of not being able to control her life that
increased her anxiety and stress and hence, as per Jokela et al. (2016), all of these indicate
towards her depression condition.
6. Dr Taylor assesses Alison’s thought. Describe how you think she mightdescribe and document
her findings?(100 words)
/4 marks
Thought process of Alison includes her distorted cognitive thoughts as she started developing
suicidal thoughts and consumed paracetamol or alcohol in high dose. The primary concern of
Alison’s mental and physical health could be associated with her financial condition as due to
her inability to earn adequately, she was unable to focus on her children’s needs and
requirements. Further, due to her affected mood and affect, she was unable to focus on her
relationship with her boyfriend and her relationship was at stake due to which she suffered from
critical mental and physical health conditions (Kopecek et al. 2017).

Reference List
Gomez, J., 2018. Liaison psychiatry: mental health problems in the general hospital.
Routledge.
Jeon, Y.H., Li, Z., Low, L.F., Chenoweth, L., O'Connor, D., Beattie, E., Liu, Z. and Brodaty,
H., 2015. The clinical utility of the cornell scale for depression in dementia as a routine
assessment in nursing homes. The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 23(8),
pp.784-793.
Jokela, M., Virtanen, M., Batty, G.D. and Kivimäki, M., 2016. Inflammation and specific
symptoms of depression. JAMA psychiatry, 73(1), pp.87-88.
Kaplan, R.L., Levine, L.J., Lench, H.C. and Safer, M.A., 2016. Forgetting feelings: Opposite
biases in reports of the intensity of past emotion and mood. Emotion, 16(3), p.309.
Kopecek, M., Bezdicek, O., Sulc, Z., Lukavsky, J. and Stepankova, H., 2017. Montreal
Cognitive Assessment and Mini Mental State Examination reliable change indices in‐
healthy older adults. International journal of geriatric psychiatry, 32(8), pp.868-875.
Kovacs, I., Găman, A.G., Ilie, C., Irimia, A. and Gireadă, A., 2017. Study on cognitive
behavioural coping of intervention and rescue personnel in toxic/flammable/explosive
environments. In MATEC Web of Conferences (Vol. 121, p. 11012). EDP Sciences.
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7. Consider Alison’s disclosure that she overdosed on Paracetamol tablets and alcohol 4 years
earlier. Why is this information vitally important to explore in the context of a mental state
assessment? Additionally, what information is important to collect in Alison’s presentation
today?(150 words)
/4 marks
Upon analyzing the mental state assessment, suicidal thoughts contribute as a primary aspect
focusing upon which clinical risk assessment of patients is conducted. As per Steele et al. (2018),
analysis of suicidal thoughts, their belief about death and their attempt of suicide helps the
psychiatrist to analyze the risks. In the psychiatric interview it was clearly mentioned that she
consumed overdose of paracetamol and alcohol due to her suicidal thought and hence, it
indicates towards her critical and crucial clinical risk that could affect her mental as well as
physical health condition. Therefore, her suicidal thoughts are important to assess as it could be
life threatening in her health condition. Further, it should also be mentioned that her mental
stress, her concern of her children and her inability to maintain her relationship with her
boyfriend could also be alarming health conditions due to which she suffered from lack of
confidence, lack of gait and inability to make her decisions.
8. How would you assessAlison’s insight into her current emotional and cognitive state? What
are the likely outcomes related to these states? Please comment on her overall judgement as
well. (150 words)
/5 marks
In case of Alison the assessment of her emotional and cognitive assessment would be
conducted as a unit as Gomez (2018) mentioned that cognition and emotion are
interdependent on each other. Cognition is associated with individual’s memory, their problem
solving abilities and their attention and emotion works as a motivator for elevation of these
cognitive aspects. Hence, in case of Alison, a structured assessment of her cognition level
would be conducted so that her mental stability and her ability to develop or frame positive
and constructive thinking. She would be asked about her ways to deal with her own mental
health condition and in such situation, and then she would be assessed for her reply and her
ability to figure out her positive outcome from her critical situation. Besides these, her ability
to control her tearfulness, her positive insight of her relationship with her children and her
boyfriend would also be assessed for her mental health condition these would be included for
her overall judgement about her mental health condition.

McKay, D., Sookman, D., Neziroglu, F., Wilhelm, S., Stein, D.J., Kyrios, M., Matthews, K.
and Veale, D., 2015. Efficacy of cognitive-behavioral therapy for obsessive–compulsive
disorder. Psychiatry research, 225(3), pp.236-246.
Northcott, S., Simpson, A., Moss, B., Ahmed, N. and Hilari, K., 2017. How do speech and‐ ‐
language therapists address the psychosocial well being of people with aphasia? Results‐
of a UK online survey. International journal of language & communication
disorders, 52(3), pp.356-373.
Segal, Z.V. and Teasdale, J., 2018. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy for depression.
Guilford Publications.
Steele, I.H., Thrower, N., Noroian, P. and Saleh, F.M., 2018. Understanding suicide across
the lifespan: a United States perspective of suicide risk factors, assessment &
management. Journal of forensic sciences, 63(1), pp.162-171.
Thagard, P. and Larocque, L., 2018. Mental health assessment: Inference, explanation,
and coherence. Journal of evaluation in clinical practice, 24(3), pp.649-654.
van den Brink, A.M., Gerritsen, D.L., de Valk, M.M., Mulder, A.T., Voshaar, R.C.O. and
Koopmans, R.T., 2018. What do nursing home residents with mental-physical
multimorbidity need and who actually knows this? A cross-sectional cohort
study. International journal of nursing studies, 81, pp.89-97.
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Task
3 Mark Allocation
Question 1 6 marks
Question 2 5 marks
Question 3 3 marks
Question 4 3 marks
Question 5 4 marks
Question 6 4 marks
Question 7 4 marks
Question 8 5 marks
Question 9 5 marks
Question 10 15 marks
Written presentation including structure and grammar,
and application of the Harvard referencing protocol.
6 marks
/60 marks
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9. Looking at Alison’spresentation overall, what risks does she currently present with? Are
there risks that you have excluded? Provide evidence for all your responses. Please give
consideration toher physical health as well as all other possible risks.(250 words)
/5 marks
Upon analysing Alison’s mental health condition through mental state assessment, multiple
mental and physical health condition was observed. As per Jeon et al. (2015), Alison and her
mental health condition is associated with several physical and clinical risks that increased her
sufferings. Upon analysing her biophysical mental state assessment, her appearance seems
timid and miserable due to her financial condition. As mentioned in the paper, she has both
static and dynamic risk factors and within these, her financial burden and her loneliness could
be included in her static risk whereas, her mood swings and her affect could be associated to
her dynamic risk factor. These static and dynamic risks are making Alison think negatively
about her life, her condition and her relationship and hence she is unable to restore of positive
feelings and thinking in her health condition. Besides this, she appeared obese and she also
mentioned that she has lost significant weight in past conditions and hence, it is also one of
the critical health conditions that could affect her ability to overcome her health conditions.
Besides these, there are multiple stressors present in her mental health condition due to
which Alison and her depression syndrome increased. These stressors are her inability to take
care of her children as a mother as she mentioned that her children are taking care of their
own requirements. Therefore, these are the risk associated to her mental and physical health
condition.
10. Alison is diagnosed with major depressive disorder. What interventions/treatment and care
pathways/options would be appropriate for her care? Give consideration to the setting in
which this care might be provided.Provide rationales for your plans. (400 words)
/15 marks
The complete mental state assessment conducted for the identification and analysis of Alison’s
mental health condition, it was observed that she is suffering from critical depressive conditions
and she should be provided with effective interventions so that her mental and physical health
could be restored. In such condition, her mental health condition, her financial condition, her
equation with her children and her boyfriend should be considered and in the intervention or
therapies, all these aspects should be addressed. As mentioned by Segal and Teasdale (2018),
recovery oriented approach or cognitive behavioral therapy should be one of the crucial