MENTAL STATUS EXAMINATION
INTRODUCTION
Holistic psychiatric nursing care requires the nurse to complete an assessment of the patient’s
biological, psychological and social cultural health status. The assessment of the patient’s
psychological well-being should include a mental status examination. The mental status
examination is a corner stone in the evaluation of any patient with a medical, neurological, or
psychiatric disorder that affects thought, emotion, or behaviour (American Psychiatric
Association 1995). It is used to detect changes or abnormalities in a person’s intellectual
functioning, thought content, judgment, mood, and affect and can be used to identify possible
lesions in the brain. All nurses, regarding of the clinical setting, should be proficient in
administering the mental status examination and be able to incorporate findings from it into
the nursing care plan for the patient.
IMPORTANT THINGS TO NOTE WHILE DOING MENTAL STATUS
EXAMINATION (MSE)
The MSE requires a clinical rather than social approach to the patient.
Listen closely to what is said and reflect on what is not said.
Attend to both the content and the process of the patient’s communication (content is
the overtly communicated information and process is the how the communication
occurs and includes feelings, intuition and behaviours that accompany speech and
thought)
It is important to monitor one’s own feelings and reaction while implementing the
MSE and should respond in a therapeutic manner toward the patient, regardless of the
nature of such feelings.
DEFINITION
The mental status examination is the part of the clinical assessment that describes the sum
total of the examiner's observations and impressions of the psychiatric patient at the time of
the interview.
PURPOSES
1. To obtain a comprehensive description of the patient's mental state
2. To make an accurate diagnosis and formulation
3. It helps for coherent treatment planning.
4. To obtain evidence of symptoms and signs of mental disorders, including danger to
self and others that are present at the time of the interview
