NRNP 6635 Week 2 Discussion: The Psychiatric Evaluation and Evidence-Based Rating Scales Example The Psychiatric Evaluation and Evidence-Based Rating Scales

NRNP 6635 Week 2 Discussion: The Psychiatric Evaluation and Evidence-Based Rating Scales Example The Psychiatric Evaluation and Evidence-Based Rating Scales

NRNP 6635 Week 2 Discussion: The Psychiatric Evaluation and Evidence-Based Rating Scales Example

The Psychiatric Evaluation and Evidence-Based Rating Scales

 A psychiatric interview refers to a set of tools, questions, and observations that healthcare providers use to complete a psychiatric assessment. Psychiatric nurse practitioners evaluate interventions and practices to ensure they deliver the best care quality and remain relevant in the field. A professional does a psychiatric assessment to aid in diagnosing and managing patients’ psychiatric/mental health. This essay reviews psychiatry interviews and describes and explores the relevance of a valuable test in psychiatry interviews.

A psychiatric interview contains various components, some similar to the routine patient assessment, that aid in data collection. A significant component of a psychiatric interview is history taking. History taking entails determining the chief complaint, which is a short explanation of the reason for the current visit. History taking also entails a history of the present illness, which entails an explanation of the current illness and its characteristics, such as onset, frequency, severity, quality, and aggravating and relieving factors (Carlat, 2017).

History of the present illness is key to patient diagnosis and differential diagnosis. The health history-taking component also entails family and social history. These two components help to identify any associated factors for the possible etiology or manifestation of the condition. Past medical and psychiatric history also helps determine etiologies or initial manifestations that can assist in diagnosing and managing the condition.

The second component of a psychiatric interview is conducting a mental health status and sometimes a physical exam. This component is a vital talking stage that helps care providers diagnose psychiatric symptoms integral to managing mental health disorders (Carlat, 2017). The next step entails developing a differential diagnosis, which entails creating a list of conditions with similar presentations. This stage combines the results of health history taking, mental status exam, and laboratory tests (if any) to rule out or confirm a diagnosis. The last component is developing a treatment plan according to these results. The step requires professionals to use evidence-based interventions and guidelines in managing diseases to develop a treatment plan.

The Quality of Well Being (QWB) is a tool consisting of preference-weighted measures expressing a numerical rate of well-being from 0 to 1.0 for optimal functioning. A ‘quality of life questionnaire’ focuses on three life domains: “mobility, physical activity, and social activity.” According to the American Psychiatric Association, a psychiatric illness must present with a symptom in either the physical, behavioral, or social domain, and the change must affect daily functioning and individual roles significantly (APA, 2022).

The QWB assesses these domains via two versions: self-administered and interviewed. Eskridge et al. (2022) note that the QWB scale assesses symptoms the patient experienced over the last few days and their variations over time. The scale also helps determine their acceptance of the symptoms, hence its relevance in diagnosis and prognosis. Another significance of the scale is that it measures what the patient did in the functional status evaluation, and not potential, hence its relevance in measuring outcomes in severe illnesses over time (Hubens et al., 2018).

Psychiatric/mental health illnesses are associated with deterioration in functional, cognitive, and social status. Thus, the QWB scale is a critical tool for psychiatric nurse practitioners and assists them in detecting changes in function and disease progression. It also helps them determine patients’ responses to treatment (Eskridge et al., 2022). QWB is thus a viable tool in psychiatric interviews and can also be used in a wide variety of conditions (Kaplan & Hays, 2022). Vetting and selecting these tools ensures that nurses utilize the best tools to eliminate unsuitable tools and promote better patient assessment, diagnosis, and prognosis.

References

American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders