Mental Health Assessment Flashcards
What is mental health triage?
An assessment of behaviour, appearance, and conversation.
What must the allocation of a triage code be based on?
Clinical criteria that is consistent with ATS descriptors for acute behavioural disturbances and risk of harm to self or others.
What do we look for in terms of appearance? (Mental Health Triage)
Are they appear untidy, unkept, appropriate or inappropriate clothing, malnourished, dehydrated, intoxicated, flushed, dilated pupils, pinpoint pupils, tense, slumped over, bizarre postures, strange facial grimaces, and do they have any visible injurys.
What do we look for in terms of affect aka the patients current emotional state (Mental health triage)?
Is the patient flat, downcast, tearful, distressed, anxious, changing emotions rapidly, excessively happy and/or experiencing emotions inconsistent with what they are talking about.
What do we look for in terms of behaviour (Mental health triage)?
Is the patient restless, agitated, hyperventilating, tremulous, orientated, angry, hostile, uncooperative, over-familiar, suspicious, guarded, withdrawn, inappropriate, fearful, and/or refusing to talk.
Are they orientated, and/or responding to unheard voices or sounds, or unseen objects or people.
What do we look for in terms of conversation (Mental health triage) ?
Is their speech slurred, rapid, repetitive, slow, uninterruptible, loud, quiet, whisper, clear.
Are they angry.
Do they stop in the middle of a sentence because they are hearing voices.
Do they know what day and time it is and how they got to the ED.
What do we look for in terms of mood (Mental health triage)?
Does the patient say they feel low, down, worthless, depressed, sad, angry, irritable, anxious, fearful, sad, really happy or high, or cannot stop crying.
What is the ATS scale?
a clinical tool used to establish the maximum waiting time for medical assessment and treatment of a patient.
What makes up a holistic assessment?
MSE, Risk, Alcohol + other drugs, Functional Inquiry, Psychosocial, and Physical health.
What makes up an MSE?
Appearance, Behaviour, Mood/Affect, Thought form, Thought content, Perception, Cognition, Insight, and judgement
What do we look for in appearance in the MSE?
Facial expressions, Attire, Grooming, awareness - aka gives clues to personality and ability to preform ADLs
What do we look as apart of the behaviour component in the MSE?
How is the patient behaving (Body language, gait, posture, manner + gestures) + The patients speech (Rate, volume, intelligibility)
What do we look as apart of the Mood/Affect component in the MSE?
Affect: The patients immediate expression of emotion
Mood: The sustained emotional makeup of the patients personality
What do we look as apart of the thought form component in the MSE?
How the patients thoughts are strung together.
Rule of Thumb: If you can follow the patients conversation there is no thought disorder
What do we look as apart of the thought content component in the MSE?
What the patient is talking about (Suicidality, ruminations, anxiety, aggression, delusional, persecutory (you think someone is going to harm you))
What do we look as apart of the perception component in the MSE?
Check if the patient is having: Hallucinations, Preoccupations (obsessions), Depersonalisation, Derealisation, and Illusion
What do we look as apart of the cognition component in the MSE?
Check if the patient has: Delirium, or intoxication.
And assess concentration, attention, and memory
What do we look as apart of the insight component in the MSE?
Assess the patients understanding of their illness/disease: Terminology, aware of issues, realistic goals, and do they understand the difference between the patient and th Dr.
What do we look as apart of the judgement component in the MSE?
Is the patient able to judge situations?
and ensure their own physical and personal safety?
What is a question we may ask when assessing perception as apart of the MSE?
Do you hear any voices that only you can hear? i.e someone talking to you that is not my voice
What is a question we may ask when assessing judgement as apart of the MSE?
What would you do if you saw a fire in your bedroom?