Mental Status Examination

Running head: MENTAL STATUS EXAMINATION
MENTAL STATUS EXAMINATION
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

1MENTAL STATUS EXAMINATION
The purpose of this reflection is to contemplate upon a case study for the
understanding and diagnosis of clinical depression according to the Clinical Reasoning Cycle
(Hur & Roh, 2013). In this scenario, this case study is about ‘Alison’ who is a 38 year old
woman with two kids. Alison has been from her about four years ago and since she has been
raising the kids alone. Presently, Alison is working in a supermarket, however, recent
takeover of the supermarket she is working on and wage cuts has put her in a bit financially
difficult situation. Due to this condition, presently, she is not able to manage her condition
quite properly and she is lagging behind in her bills. In this regard, there are some stressors
which are being in play in this situation. Her financial condition is chief among them.
Additionally, this root cause (financially unstable) engenders few other stressors which
started to impact her life. In her own word, she cannot provide to her what they asking and
this made her into thinking that she is a ‘useless’ mother. All these factors have been working
as stressors in her situation. However, there are also some protective factors in case of Alison.
One of them is her sister. Her sister has noticed her recent condition, she recommended her to
visit to the general practitioner for check- up.
Aetiology of the mental health can be linked to many different factors and to
determine the reason for a particular mental health condition, many different area need to be
assessed in this scenario. As clinician or nurse, it is paramount to know these factors and the
reason behind the incorporation of these factors in the assessment. However, in this scenario,
Alison needs a biophysical approach for her assessment. One of the major features of this
biophysical approach (Kumar et al., 2014) is mental status examination or MSE (Woods&
Denton, 2014). In this scenario, mental status examination was conducted by the general
practitioner. From the summary of this assessment’s findings it can be stated that the general
appearance of Alison was very timid and nervous. She was rarely making eye contact with
her general practitioner. From her behaviour it can be stated that she was lacking confidence

2MENTAL STATUS EXAMINATION
in herself and her abilities. Cognitively she was bit down, however, her thought process was
clear and she can clearly portray what she was thinking. Her thought process was logical and
rational and she has the judging capacity to think what is harmful and what is not, what is
good for her children and what is not. During the interview process, she was speaking in
intermittent manner and become tearful with the slightest of cues and stays like that for the
rest of the interview. Her thought process and recent experience was bereft of any delusional
subjects which is generally common among the mental health patient. However, distortions in
cognitive ability can be evident her contemplation of suicide or ending her own life. The
mood of her during the interview was very gloomy and she was sobbing continuously. When
Alison was asked whether she is contemplating on harming herself, she mentioned that she
has but it is generally occurs at night when she is alone. Nonetheless, she has not taken any
preparation for this. From this Alison’s static risk factors can be determined as loneliness,
financial burden whereas mood swing and change of mental state can be presented among the
dynamic risk factors.
From the data presented above and after analysing the data particularly from the
mental status examination, it can be stated that the Alison has been suffering from
‘Depression with anxious distress’ according to the DSM- 5 guidelines
(Dsm.psychiatryonline.org, 2019) as she has shown the symptoms of being tense, difficulty in
concentration due to extreme worry, and feeling of loss of control in her daily life activities.
As a result, she is in currently risk for risk of suicide, longer duration of the illness as well as
non- responsiveness towards treatment.
Alison’s present financial condition is in tatters and in together with her present
condition might have detrimental effect on her children aged 11 and 9 years. Her children
might be emotionally distress, might have separation anxiety and they will not get the sense
of security from their mother. In addition to that their educational and physical growth might