Mental Health Assessment: Case Study of Lucinda Okiro

Running head: MENTAL HEALTH
Mental health
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author’s note

1MENTAL HEALTH
1. Mental status of the client in the case study:
The case study is about Lucinda Okiro, who presented to the peri-natal mental health
service for a mental health assessment with her eight months daughter, Emily. The main
concern for Lucinda was feelings of fear and anxiety because she was pregnant with her
second child. She is feeling frightened at the thought of second pregnancy because her first
pregnancy was complicated and she is still feeling challenges in taking care of Emily. To
assess overall mental status of client, the components of the Mental State Examination
(MSE) has been used. MSE is a widely used test to evaluate cognitive status of a client and
the focus is main observed appearance, behaviour, affect, mood, thought form, thought
content, perception and judgment of client (Su et al., 2014). Based on appearance, Lucinda
was found to be well-groomed. Lucinda was found to wring her hands further mirroring that
she upset with her life. In addition, various impairments in the area of mood was found as
Lucinda expressed feeling frightened and very unhappy after finding out that she is pregnant
with her second child. She was worried about the birth of her child due to her previous
pregnancy complications.
She was found in a dysphoric state as she was very upset and depressed. Patel et al.
(2015) explains mood impairment as a common clinical manifestations of different types of
mental disorders as 8 out of 10 people report some degree of mood impairment and it is
associated with reduced capability for daily life activities, lack of happiness and poor self
esteem too. The impact of poor mood on Lucinda’s overall functioning was seen too as she
founds no motivation to get out of bed. The assessment of Lucinda in the areas of thought
process, content, insight/judgment shows no impairment in overall thought process and
content. There is no sign and hallucination and she is making logical interpretation of events

2MENTAL HEALTH
in her life. For example, she expected her mother to come up and help her. However, she
gave valid reasons regarding shy she cannot come and why her husband Jerome’s family
cannot come too. Therefore, no irrational thought pattern is seen. Hence, two components of
the MSE that is found to be affected for Lucinda include mood and affect. Her mood is really
down and affect is dysphoric and congruent.
As Lucinda expressed feeling very upset because of her second pregnancy and again
leaving her studies and work because of it, there is a need to assess risk of the depressive
symptpms in the client. This has been done by comparison of symptoms that Lucinda is
experiencing to the DSM-V criteria for depressive disorder. According to the DSM-V criteria
for depression, a person is diagnosed with depression if four or five of the following
symptom is presence in patient for more than two weeks. This includes depressed mood, lack
of interest activities of pressure, sleep problems, lethargy, feelings of worthlessness, suicide
ideation and lack of concentration (Schmidt & Tolentino, 2018). Out of these symptoms,
Lucinda is found to have diminished interest in activities of daily living evidence by low
motivation to get out bed. She had feelings of guilt and depressed too. Three-four symptoms
of depression is found in Lucinda too indicating she is at risk of depression. She feels very
lonely too and research literature gives the idea that loneliness is a major risk factor that leads
to fear, anxiety and depressive thinking. It increases pattern of negative thinking and
decreases self-confidence of affected individuals (Grover et al., 2018).
2. Factors contributing to the development of the current mental health status of the
client: