Attached.

Outline for the Paper Components of the Mental Status Examination (MSE) Tool
I.

Introduction
a) The mental status examination (MSE) provides a comprehensive framework for
collecting subjective and objective data about the patient's mental state.
b) Assessment of mental health status includes patient health elements of mood,
affect, speech, behavioral disposition, perceptual problems, thinking process,
thought content, judgment, insight, cognition, and physical appearance.
Thesis: This report explores the standard components of mental status examinations
for diverse healthcare settings.

II.

Components of a Mental Status Examination
a) Mood
1) The patient's mood involves describing their feelings in their own words.
2) The clinician describes their feelings by transcribing the patient's verbatim
under quotation marks.
b) Affect
1) This element describes the clinician's interpretation of observable
nonverbal expressions of a patient's facial or body language.
c) Speech
1) The clinician notes elements of speech, including tone, volume,
verbalization, fluency, rate and rhythm.
d) Behavioral Disposition
1) The clinician should describe their general observation of patient
behaviour during the clinical interviews.

e) Perceptual Problems
1) Clinicians can assess perceptual problems by questioning the patient.
2) Hallucinations differ from illusions that involve a misperception of an actual
stimulus.
3) Typical psychiatric hallucinations involve hearing, sight, smell or touch
(Calabrese et al., 2023).
f) Cognition
1) Elements of cognition that are commonly assessed include orientation,
alertness, memory, abstract thinking, and attention.
g) Thinking Process
1) Involves thought organization and how an individual expresses their
thinking.
h) Thinking content
1) Content of thought is the subject matter in someone's thinking process,
determined by listening to the patient through the interview.
2) Clinicians must report to third parties if a patient with a neurocognitive
disorder may develop homicidal or suicidal ideation (Pfaff et al., 2020).
i) Judgement
1) Judgement involves the decision-making capacities that can be found out
when asking the patient how they would react to various scenarios.
j) Insight
1) This mental health dimension involves the patient's capacity to understand
their condition and functionality.

k) Physical Appearance
1) This mental health dimension is observable immediately, seconds after the
clinical introduction and noted throughout the interview.
III.

Conclusion
a) The mental status examination procedure includes a step-by-step evaluation
approach that is crucial for evaluating the patient's overall mental health.
b) The mental health evaluation tool is subdivided into several areas of focus in
psychiatri...