Mental State Assessment

Running head: MENTAL STATE ASSESSMENT
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Mental State Assessment
Student’s Name
University

MENTAL STATE ASSESSMENT
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Mental State Assessment
Introduction
The clinical reasoning cycle offers steps for understanding analyzing patient situations to
develop goals and clinical interventions for assisting the patients to overcome the challenge that
they are facing. This means that it applies an individual-centered approach for determining the
state of the patient and the challenges that this situation brings to determine the best mechanism
for addressing such needs.
Step one: Patient’ situation
The first step of the clinical reasoning cycle is understanding the state situation of the patient to
inform the clinical goals that will be developed towards the needs of the patient. The case of
Alison presents a 38-year-old single divorced mother with two children who and she is suffering
from clinical depression. Based on her situation she is having financial challenges that have
created the inability for her to meet her domestic needs. This has led to low mood, difficulty
sleeping, poor appetite which has led to the loss of weight and even affected her social life
making it difficult for her to cope with both her children and boyfriend. These signs are
indicators of poor mental health which is the reason why she has sought the assistance of mental
health professional.
Collection of cues and information
In this phase, the focus is on understanding the patient and the mental state that they have by
focusing on the issues in the life of the patient. Alison is speaking in a soft tone which can be
attributed to her low mood and probably the slowly fading social esteem. She seems to be
avoided eye contact with the mental health worker and can be seen wringing her fingers as the
professional engages her. The assessment of the level of cognition can be described as good

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since she is conscious, attentive, concentrating well and has a good memory based on the
account of the events that she has been experiencing recently (Töreki, et al., 2013). The thought
process assessment shows that she is flowing and connecting well as seen in the way she
explains and connects different events that she is going through. The thought content shows no
signs of illusionary or preoccupation content that is worrying and indicates high signs of
increased depression (Roiser, Elliott, & Sahakian, 2012). The effect state of the patient can be
defined dysphoric with no signs of excessive depression and irritation. The description of her
mood based on the information that has been provided can be defined as “loss of appetite,
difficulty falling asleep, challenges dealing with her children and boyfriend and lastly the feeling
of worthlessness”.
Process information
In this step, the focus is on the application of the DSM-5 to determine the nature of the problem
that the patient is facing. This tool provides measures for determining if a patient is suffering
from clinical depression or not. Hasin, Sarvet, & Meyers (2018) suggests that this means that one
can only be described as having depression if the symptoms occurred repeatedly for a period of
two weeks and lead to a depressed mood or loss of pleasure in some aspects of life. In the case of
Alison, she has had these episodes for over two weeks which is the reason why she is seeking
assistance. She has registered diminishing interests in her social life and she is no longer
interested in the people around her like the boyfriend and children. Other characteristics of
depression are weight loss, loss of appetite, diminishing interest in life, feeling of worthlessness
that is making full of guilt and feeling like a less mother and difficulty sleeping (Smith-Nielsen,
Matthey, Lange, & Væver, 2018). Thus from the characteristic, I can conclude that she is
suffering from DSM-5 depression due to the symptoms that she is showing where the moods are