Mental Health Nursing Assignment | Mental State Examination
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Added on 2020-04-07
Mental Health Nursing Assignment | Mental State Examination
Added on 2020-04-07
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Running head: MENTAL HEALTH- NURSING 1Mental Health- NursingStudent NameInstitution
MENTAL HEALTH- NURSING 2IntroductionPart A: Mental State Examination1.Mental State Examination (MSE) is the comprehensive way of observing and describingindividual patient’s state of mind. Mental state examination forms the fundamental assessmentfor mental disorders, especially on the symptoms. Mental state examination banks onobservations and the use of questionnaires or interview to determine the sound ability of thepatient to score on the symptoms of mental disorders. There are key domains that are used toassess or evaluate the patient or client. The appearance of the patient may be emotionallygenerated that initiating behavior assessment as an element of MSE (Recupero,2010). Theappearance of the patient is another check, for the patient may seem to deviate from the normalbehavior showing some mental depression. Other domains that are also used in the evaluation areperception, insight, cognition, thought, and speech. As registered nurse officer, when assessingthe patient for mental problems, observation and capacity of the patient to show symptoms ofmental health problems forms the basis. Any concerns of the behavior change or misbehaviorthat may also be identifiable from the dressing or general behaviors are key to mental disorders.In addition, MSE uses other mental health evaluation tools such as depression anxiety stressscale (DASS) to assess anxiety, stress or depression as critical signs of mental problems(Khoury,Lecomte& Fortin et al, 2013).2.The Mental State Examination
MENTAL HEALTH- NURSING 3As a registered nurse, there are critical domains that are used to assess the mental healthof the patients. These domains form the foundation or the basis of the mental state examination.The MSE reveals the mental condition that is associated with certain domains and whenobserved or patient is interviewed the nursing officer can see the mental status of the patient.Some of the main domains that are normally used in evaluation and assessment of patient areappearance, thought, mood and affect, insight, behavior, cognition, perception, and speech (Saks,2007). AppearanceAppearance is a domain that makes use of physical aspects of the patients with a focus onelements such as dressing, age, weight, and height. Clinicians use physical appearance that mayinclude discrepancies between physical appearance and age symbol of chronic poor self-care.Dirty clothes, on the other hand, may show patients suffering from depression as compared tobizarre clothing that may use to show mania condition of the patient. Body weight loss is alsoanother aspect of appearance domain that is used to assess illness or depressive disorder amongmental patients (Mohatt,Bennett& Walkup, 2014).BehaviourBehaviour domain of mental state examination is used to assess abnormal behaviors thatmay result from a mental disorder. Behaviors such as gestures, eye contact, gait, and expressionare used to assess the abdominal behavior resulting from mental disorders. For instance, theability of the patient to follow or act according to the instruction shows a particular behavior.This may be used to indicate the mental status of the patient. Secondly, lack of eye contact maybe used to indicate depression within patient’s mental health (Recupero,2010).
MENTAL HEALTH- NURSING 4Content of Speech Speech or speech content of patient gives the clinician spontaneous speech to assess thespeech functioning. Speech reveals the thought content or thought form which are two importantaspects of speech functioning used in assessing mental state. Speech content can be used toassess language disorders such as clustering, mutism or stuttering hence effect on the patient’smental state. Spontaneity and latency of speech are two important elements of speechfunctioning that express the state of the mind of the patient (Nutt, King,Saulsbury& Blakemore,2007). Mood and affectThe internal emotional state of an individual may be express in terms of mood and isclosely related to affect. The mood is expressed in a dynamic external state that directlyrepresents the internal predominant state. Affect is readily confused by mood since the twoalmost represent similar phenomenon and explains one’s state of mind. Mood and affect aredirectly related to the emotional state of the mind and as nurse examining or observing the moodof the patient has clear indication of the state of mind of the patient (Zhao et al, 2016).Thought Thought domain is another aspect of the mental state examination that shows thepatient’s thinking and is generally evaluated based on the reasonability of the patient.Aggressive, self-harm and obsession are some of the elements that can be used to evaluate thethought domain of patient. For instance, observing the aggression of the patient especially whenthe patient tries to self-harm is a good indication that the patient has a mental problem that needs
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