The Mental State Assessment

Running head: MENTAL STATE EXAMINATION WORKBOOK
MENTAL STATE EXAMINATION WORKBOOK
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

MENTAL STATE EXAMINATION WORKBOOK
1
Define the mental state assessment, describe when it is to be used and describe why it is
a useful tool for nursing or midwifery practice.
The Mental State Assessment can be defined as a procedure which is followed widely
in psychiatric assessment to observe patient's attitude, mood, appearance, behaviour, speech,
thought process, cognition, judgement and affect (The Royal Children's Hospital Melbourne
2020). It is used when a patient faces mental disorientation. Its purpose is to acquire a view of
patient's mental condition to diagnose the problem accurately.
Mental Health Assessment is a crucial part of nursing and midwifery practices as the
nurses need to assess mental disorder, manage emergencies such as suicidal behaviour in
patients, have knowledge about psychotropic medicine so that the patients are treated
accordingly and get cured (World Health Organization 2020).
Describe Andy's appearance and behaviour during the initial assessment.
During the initial assessment, Andy appeared to be a little intimidated to talk to Dr
Taylor and was sceptical about discussing his problems with her. However, gradually he
started to open up about the issues he was constantly facing. He appeared to be very much
disturbed and kept looking here and there. His behaviour is evidence of paranoia. He also did
not maintain proper eye contact with the doctor and was very distractive and showed
continuous fidgetiness. His behaviour seemed that someone was talking in the room other
than the doctor and he complained that a chip has been incorporated in his brain which gave
him thoughts and he could also listen to voices of his housemates talking and cornering him
which made him much more paranoid.

MENTAL STATE EXAMINATION WORKBOOK
2
Differentiate between mood and affect, and then describe affect as it relates to Andy.
Mood is the state of sustained emotion that can last for hours to days, whereas Affect
is the state of expressed emotion which is observed at any point of time and short-lived
(Psychiatry Clerkship 2020).
Affect of Andy shows he is quite anxious, depressed and agitated about the problems
he has been facing. He also has a flat affect as he shows almost no emotional expression
(Mednick 2017).
Discuss Andy's speech.
Andy's speech is slow and clear, but it seems that he is thinking a bit before answering
the doctor. His speech is also evidence of his increasing paranoia. His speech is also
accompanied by his fidgetiness and staring elsewhere, which also explains his problems of
lack of concentration.
What signs or symptoms associated with an episode of psychosis can you identify in the
interview with Andy?
There are quite a few signs and symptoms associated with psychosis that can be
identified from Andy's interview that include persecutory delusion or paranoia, auditory
hallucinations, running commentary, a delusion of control or thought insertion,
preoccupation, isolative behaviour, passive suicidal ideation, lack of insight and cannabis
associated increased psychosis (Granö et al. 2015).