The Psychiatric Mental Status Examination

By Robert W. Baker and Paula T. Trzepacz

Book Overview

Developed from years of teaching psychiatry to medical students and residents, this comprehensive text devoted solely to describing the mental status examination (MSE) fills a void in the teaching literature and will be valuable to both students first learning about the MSE and seasoned clinicians seeking an informative reference. The introductory chapter offers basic advice on interviewing patients and eliciting information. Six major sections of the MSE follow and are thoroughly described with a chapter devoted to each: Appearance, Attitude, Activity; Mood and Affect; Speech and Language; Thought Content, Thought Process, and Perception; Cognition; and Insight and Judgment. Each chapter lists a detailed definition of reference for students describing their findings, and are an insightful review even for experienced practitioners. The clinical relevance of mental status abnormalities is illustrated through frequent examples of disorders that can cause the particular signs and symptoms defined in each chapter. A final chapter describing fictional case histories with hypothetical examples of written mental status reports will be particularly useful for those learning to write such reports. This text is an important addition to the libraries of students and practitioners who work with psychiatric patients and should help to simplify and organize a challenging task.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195062515
• ISBN13: 9780195062519
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 216 Pages
• Weight: 1.37 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

book review

I bought this book to help me improve my skills at interviewing people who are in need of assistance. It has been very helpful.

The gold standars for mental state examination

I am in my first year of psychiatry training. For all the guys in the same boat this is one of the first textbooks to buy. It is covers all the basics of MSE very well, it is easy to read. If you can only buy one book on basic mental state examination in your first year and money is tight this is the one to invest in.

An extremely useful primer

This is one of my favorite reference books. It describes how to do a good mental status exam in very clear language. It provides definitions of all the terms used in the process and gives well-written examples of their use. The authors help you to develop a good conceptual understanding of how to assess and describe a person's mental status. A valuable primer for social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists.

A must for psychiatry students and clinicians alike

During my first two years working in adult mental health, I have found this book to be an invaluable resource in my day to day practice. Not only is it an excellent dictionary from which to draw when writing MSEs, it also explains just about every mental state term that one might come across in psychiatry. It has also been a particularly good tool for use in teaching and student supervision. A must for the psychiatry reference library.