History Taking and MSE

1. Dr. Ravi Paul

2.  The psychiatric history is the record of the patient's life; it
allows a psychiatrist to understand:
 Who the patient is,
 Where the patient has come from, and
 Where the patient is likely to go in the future.
 The history is the patient's life story told to the
psychiatrist in the patients own words from his or her own
point of view or from other sources, such as a parent or
spouse.
 The most important technique for obtaining a psychiatric
history is to allow patients to tell their stories in their own
words in the order that they consider most important.
 As patients relate their stories, skilful interviewers
recognize the points at which they can introduce relevant
questions about the areas described in the outline of the
history and mental status examination.
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3.  The identifying data provide a succinct
demographic summary of the patient by name,
age, marital status, sex, occupation, language (if
other than English), ethnic background, and
religion, insofar as they are pertinent, and the
patient's current living circumstances.
 Place or situation in which the current interview
took place, the source(s) of the information, the
reliability of the source(s), and whether the
current disorder is the first episode for the
patient.
 Whether the patient came in on his or her own,
was referred by someone else, or was brought in
by someone else.
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4.  The presenting complaint, in the patient's own words,
states why he or she has come or been brought in for
help.
 It should be recorded even if the patient is unable to
speak, and the patient's explanation, regardless of how
bizarre or irrelevant it is, should be recorded verbatim
in the section on the presenting complaint.
 If the patient is comatose or mute that should be
noted in the chief complaint as such.
 Specify the duration of Chief complaints
 Examples of Chief Complaints follow:
 I am having thoughts of wanting to harm myself.•
 People are trying to drive me insane.
 I feel I am going mad.
 I have no complaint
 I am here because of my skin rash
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5.  Comprehensive and chronological picture of the
events leading up to the current moment in the
patient's life.
 This part of the psychiatric history is probably the
most helpful in making a diagnosis
 When was the onset of the current episode, and what
were the immediate precipitating events or triggers?
 An understanding of the history of the present illness
helps answer the questions:
 Why now?
 Why did the patient come to the doctor at this time?
 What were the patient's life circumstances at the
onset of the symptoms or behavioural changes, and
how did they affect the patient so that the
presenting disorder became manifest?
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6.  The patient's symptoms, extent of incapacity, type of treatment received,
names of hospitals, length of each illness, effects of previous treatments, and
degree of compliance should all be explored and recorded chronologically.
 Particular attention should be paid to the first episodes that signalled the
onset of illness, because first episodes can often provide crucial data about
precipitating events, diagnostic possibilities, and coping capabilities.
 With regard to medical history, the psychiatrist should obtain a medical
review of symptoms and note any major medical or surgical illnesses and
major traumas, particularly those requiring hospitalization.
 Episodes of cranio-cerebral trauma, neurological illness, tumors, and seizure
disorders or HIV-AIDS.
 A history of infection with syphilis is critical and relevant.
 All patients must be asked about alcohol and other substances used, including
details about the quantity and frequency of use. It is often advisable to frame
questions in the form of an assumption of use, such as, “How much alcohol
would you say you drink in a day?”•Rather than “Do you drink?”
 Many medical conditions and their treatments cause psychiatric symptoms
e.g. Endocrinopathies such as hypothyroidism or Addison's disease may
manifest with depression, treatment with corticosteroids can precipitate
manic and psychotic symptoms.
 In addition, the coexistence of physical disease may result in secondary
psychiatric symptoms.
 A middle-aged man in the aftermath of a heart attack may suffer from
anxiety and depression.
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7.  A brief statement about any psychiatric illness,
hospitalization, and treatment of the patient's
immediate family members should be placed in
the family history part of the report.
 Does the family have a history of alcohol and
other substance abuse or of antisocial behavior?
 The psychiatrist should determine the family's
attitude toward, and insight into, the patient's
illness.
 Does the patient feel that the family members
are supportive, indifferent, or destructive? What
is the role of illness in the family?
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8.  Prenatal and Perinatal
 Full-term pregnancy or premature
 Vaginal delivery or caesarian
 Drugs taken by mother during pregnancy (prescription and recreational)
 Birth complications
 Defects at birth
 Infancy and early childhood
 Infant-mother relationship
 Problems with feeding and sleep
 Significant milestones
 Standing/walking
 First words/two-word sentences
 Bowel and bladder control
 Other caregivers
 Unusual behaviours (e.g., head-banging)
 Middle childhood
 Preschool and school experiences
 Separations from caregivers
 Friendships/play
 Methods of discipline
 Illness, surgery, or trauma
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9.  Adolescence
 Onset of puberty
 Academic achievement
 Organized activities (sports, clubs)
 Areas of special interest
 Romantic involvements and sexual experience
 Work experience
 Drug/alcohol use
 Symptoms (moodiness, irregularity of sleeping or eating, fights and arguments)
 Young adulthood
 Meaningful long-term relationship
 Academic and career decisions
 Military experience
 Work history
 Prison experience
 Intellectual pursuits and leisure activities
 Middle adulthood and old age
 Changing family constellation
 Social activities
 Work and career changes
 Aspirations
 Major losses
 Retirement and aging
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10.  Marital and Relationship History
History of each marriage, legal or common law.
 Education History
How far did the patient go in school? What was the highest grade or graduate
level attained? What did the patient like to study, and what was the level of
academic performance? How far did the other members of the patient's family go
in school, and how do they compare with the patient's progress? What is the
patient's attitude toward academic achievement?
 Religion
Was the family's attitude toward religion strict or permissive, and were there any
conflicts between the parents over the child's religious education?
Does the patient have a strong religious affiliation, and, if so, how does this
affiliation affect the patient's life?
What does the patient's religion say about the treatment of psychiatric or medical
illness? What is the religious attitude toward suicide?
 Social Activity
Social life and the nature of friendships, with an emphasis on the depth,
duration, and quality of human relationships.
Does the patient prefer isolation, or is the patient isolated because of anxieties
and fears about other people? Who visits the patient in the hospital and how
frequently?
 Sexual History
Whether sexually active or not?
Sexual orientation
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11.  Mental Status Examination
 Physical Examination
 Neurological Examination
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12.  Describes the sum total of the examiner's
observations and impressions of the psychiatric
patient at the time of the interview.
 Whereas the patient's history remains stable, the
patient's mental status can change from day to
day or hour to hour.
 The mental status examination is the description
of the patient's appearance, speech, actions,
and thoughts during the interview.
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13. Appearance
 Describe the patient's appearance and
overall physical impression, as reflected by
posture, poise, clothing, and grooming.
 Examples of items in the appearance
category include body type, posture, poise,
clothes, grooming, hair, and nails.
 Common terms used to describe appearance
are healthy, sickly, ill at ease, poised, old
looking, young looking, dishevelled,
childlike, and bizarre. Signs of anxiety are
noted: moist hands, perspiring forehead,
tense posture, wide eyes.
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14.  Here is described both the quantitative and
qualitative aspects of the patient's motor
behavior. Included are mannerisms, tics,
gestures, twitches, stereotyped behavior,
echopraxia, hyperactivity, agitation,
flexibility, rigidity, gait, and agility.
 Describe restlessness, wringing of hands,
pacing, and other physical manifestations.
 Note psychomotor retardation or generalized
slowing of body movements. Describe any
aimless, purposeless activity.
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15.  Cooperative, friendly, attentive, interested,
frank, seductive, defensive, perplexed,
apathetic, hostile, evasive, or guarded;
 Record the level of rapport established.
 Was the patient easy to engage with?
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16.  Mood: Mood is defined as a pervasive and sustained
emotion that colors the person's perception of the
world.
 The psychiatrist is interested in whether the
patient remarks voluntarily about feelings or
whether it is necessary to ask the patient how he or
she feels.
 Statements about the patient's mood should include
depth, intensity, duration, and fluctuations.
Common adjectives used to describe mood include
depressed, despairing, irritable, empty, guilty,
hopeless, anxious, angry, expansive, elated,
euphoric, irritable, futile, self-contemptuous,
frightened, and perplexed. Mood can be labile,
fluctuating or alternating rapidly between extremes
(e.g., laughing loudly and expansively one moment,
tearful and despairing the next).
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17.  Euthymia
Normal range of mood, implying absence of depressed or elevated mood
 Elevated mood
Air of confidence and enjoyment; a mood more cheerful than normal but
not necessarily pathological.
 Expansive mood
Expression of feelings without restraint, frequently with an overestimation
of their significance or importance. Seen in mania.
 Euphoria
Exaggerated feeling of well-being that is inappropriate to real events. Can
occur with drugs such as opiates, amphetamines, and alcohol.
 Elation
Mood consisting of feelings of joy, euphoria, triumph, and intense self-
satisfaction or optimism. Occurs in mania when not grounded in reality.
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18.  Affect can be defined as the patient's present emotional
responsiveness, inferred from the patient's facial expression,
including the amount and the range of expressive behavior.
 Affect can be described as within normal range. In the normal
range of affect can be variation in facial expression, tone of
voice, use of hands, and body movements.
 Affect can be classified as restricted, blunted, flattened,
appropriate, or inappropriate.
 Restricted affect
Reduction in intensity of feeling tone
 Blunted affect
Disturbance of affect manifested by a severe reduction in the
intensity of externalized feeling tone; one of the fundamental
symptoms of schizophrenia
 Flat affect
Absence or near absence of any signs of affective expression.
The patient's voice is monotonous and the face should be
immobile and expressionless. The patient has difficulty in
initiating, sustaining, or terminating an emotional response.
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19.  Appropriateness of Affect
 The appropriateness of the patient's emotional
responses in the context of the subject the
patient is discussing.
 Delusional patients who are describing a delusion
of persecution should be angry or frightened
about the experiences they believe are
happening to them. Anger or fear in this context
is an appropriate expression.
 The term inappropriate affect is used for a
quality of response found in some schizophrenia
patients, in whom the patient's affect is
incongruent with what the patient is saying
(e.g., flattened affect when speaking about
grandiose ideas).
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20.  Speech: Spontaneous or non-spontaneous
 Rate: Rapid, slow, pressured, hesitant, slurred
 Volume: loud, whispered, slurred
 Tone: emotional, monotonous, dramatic
 The patient may be described as talkative, voluble
 Pressure of speech: Increased production of speech
wherein a person can’t be stopped once he starts
speaking
 Poverty of speech: Where in the patient is not
speaking much or there is restriction in the amount
of speech or is speaking in monosyllables
 Poverty of content of speech: The patient speaks
adequately but it contains little information because
of its vagueness, emptiness or stereotyped phrases
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21.  Perceptual disturbances, such as hallucinations,
illusions (misinterpretation of normal stimuli),
depersonalisation (sense of unreality in relation to
self) and derealisation (sense of unreality in relation
to surroundings). The hallucinations occur in five
sensory modalities (e.g., auditory, visual, taste,
olfactory, or tactile).
 The circumstances of the occurrence of any
hallucinatory experience are important; hypnagogic
hallucinations (occurring as a person falls asleep) and
hypnopompic hallucinations (occurring as a person
awakens) have much less serious significance than
other types of hallucinations.
 Formication, the feeling of bugs crawling on or under
the skin, is seen in cocainism.
 Examples of questions used to elicit the experience
of hallucinations include the following: Have you ever
heard voices or other sounds that no one else could
hear or when no one else was around? Have you
experienced any strange sensations in your body that
others do not seem to see?
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22.  A young man with schizophrenia heard an insistent
voice repeatedly telling him to stop his antipsychotic
medication. After resisting the command for many
weeks, the patient felt that he could no longer fight
the voice, and he discontinued treatment. Two months
later, he was hospitalized involuntarily and near
cardiovascular collapse. He later said that once he
stopped the medication, the voice further insisted
that he should stop eating and drinking to purify
himself.
 A terrified 37-year-old man in acute psychosis glanced
agitatedly about the room. He pointed out the
window and said: My God, the Spanish armada is on
the lawn. They're about to attack.•He experienced the
hallucination as real, and it persisted intermittently
for 3 days before abating. Subsequently, the patient
had no memory of the experience.
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23.  Thought can be divided into PROCESS (OR FORM)
and CONTENT.
 Process refers to the way in which a person puts
together ideas and associations, the form in
which a person thinks. Process or form of thought
can be logical and coherent or completely
illogical and even incomprehensible.
 CONTENT refers to what a person is actually
thinking about: overvalued ideas, delusions,
preoccupations, obsessions.
 THOUGHT PROCESS (FORM OF THINKING)
The patient may have either an overabundance
or a poverty of ideas. There may be rapid
thinking, which, if carried to the extreme, is
called a flight of ideas. A patient may exhibit
slow or hesitant thinking.
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24. Clang associations. Thoughts are associated by the sound
of words rather than by their meaning (e.g., through
rhyming or assonance).
Loosening of association: A breakdown in both the logical
connection between ideas and the overall sense of goal-
directedness. The words make sentences, but the
sentences do not make sense.
Flight of ideas. A succession of multiple associations so
that thoughts seem to move abruptly from idea to idea;
often (but not invariably) expressed through rapid,
pressured speech.
Neologism. The invention of new words or phrases or the
use of conventional words in idiosyncratic ways.
Perseveration. Repetition of out of context of words,
phrases, or ideas.
Tangentiality. In response to a question, the patient gives
a reply that is appropriate to the general topic without
actually answering the question. Example:
Doctor: Have you had any trouble sleeping lately?•
Patient: I usually sleep in my bed, but now I'm sleeping on
the sofa.•
Thought blocking. A sudden disruption of thought or a
break in the flow of ideas.
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25.  A young man with schizophrenia, a college
dropout who could work only part time at low-
level jobs and who lived with his high-achieving
family, believed he was the Messiah. He was
fully convinced that his struggles and lack of
occupational success were merely God's tests
until the patient's true identity would be
revealed. As he improved, he would, if asked,
say that he was God's chosen but, when
questioned further, would admit the slight
possibility that he was wrong. On reaching his
best clinical state, he would muse on the
possibility that he was the Messiah but state
that he was not sure.
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26.  Consciousness
 Disturbances of consciousness usually indicate organic brain
impairment. Clouding of consciousness is an overall reduced
awareness of the environment. A patient may be unable to
sustain attention to environmental stimuli or to maintain
goal-directed thinking or behavior. A patient typically exhibits
fluctuations in the level of awareness of the surrounding
environment.
 Questions Used to Test Cognitive Functions in the
Sensorium Section of the Mental Status Examination
 1. Alertness
 (Observation)
 2. Orientation
 What is your name? Who am I?
What place is this? Where is it located?
What city are we in?
 3. Concentration
 Starting at 100, count backward by 7 (or 3).
Say the letters of the alphabet backward starting with Z.
Name the months of the year backward starting with
December?
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27. 4. Memory
Immediate
Repeat these numbers after me: 1, 4, 9, 2, 5.
Recent
What did you have for breakfast?
What were you doing before we started talking this morning?
I want you to remember these three things: a yellow pencil, a cocker
spaniel, and Chipata. After a few minutes I'll ask you to repeat them.
 Long term
 What was your address when you were in the third grade?
Who was your teacher?
What did you do during the summer between high school and college?
 5. Calculations
 If you buy something that costs 300K and you pay with a 500K, how much
change should you get?
What is the cost of three oranges if a dozen oranges cost 4000K?
 6. Fund of knowledge
What is the distance between Kabwe and Lusaka? What body of water lies
between Zambia and Zimbabwe?
 7. Abstract reasoning
Which one does not belong in this group: a pair of scissors, a knife, and a
spider? Why?
How are an apple and an orange alike
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28.  Judgment
 During the course of history taking, the psychiatrist should be able
to assess many aspects of the patient's capability for social
judgment. Does the patient understand the likely outcome of his or
her behavior?
 Insight
 Insight is a patient's degree of awareness and understanding about
being ill.
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29.  A summary of six levels of insight follows:
 Complete denial of illness
 Slight awareness of being sick and needing help, but
denying it at the same time
 Awareness of being sick but blaming it on others, on
external factors, or on organic factors
 Awareness that illness is caused by something unknown in
the patient
 Intellectual insight: admission that the patient is ill and
that symptoms or failures in social adjustment are caused
by the patient's own particular irrational feelings or
disturbances without applying this knowledge to future
experiences
 True emotional insight: emotional awareness of the
motives and feelings within the patient and the important
persons in his or her life, which can lead to basic changes
in behavior.
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30.  Physical examination
 Neurological examination
 Additional psychiatric diagnostic
 Interviews with family members, friends, or
neighbours by a social worker
 Psychological, neurological, or laboratory tests
as indicated: Electroencephalogram, computed
tomography scan, magnetic resonance imaging,
tests of other medical conditions, reading
comprehension and writing tests, test for
aphasia, projective or objective psychological
tests, dexamethasone-suppression test, 24-
hour urine test for heavy metal intoxication,
urine screen for drugs of abuse
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31.  Predisposing factors
 Precipitating factors
 Perpetuating factors
 Protective factors
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32.  Diagnostic classification is made according to DSM-IV-TR,
which uses a multi-axial classification scheme consisting of
five axes, each of which should be covered in the diagnosis
Axis I: Clinical syndromes (e.g., mood disorders,
schizophrenia, generalized anxiety disorder) and other
conditions that may be a focus of clinical attention
Axis II: Personality disorders, mental retardation, and
defense mechanisms
Axis III: Any general medical conditions (e.g., epilepsy,
cardiovascular disease, endocrine disorders)
Axis IV: Psychosocial and environmental problems (e.g.,
divorce, injury, death of a loved one) relevant to the illness
Axis V: Global assessment of functioning exhibited by the
patient during the interview (e.g., social, occupational, and
psychological functioning); a rating scale with a continuum
from 100 (superior functioning) to 1 (grossly impaired
functioning) is used
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33.  Need for admission/ outpatient Rx
 Comprehensive treatment planning
requires a therapeutic team approach
using the skills of psychologists, social
workers, nurses, activity and occupational
therapists, and a variety of other mental
health professionals, with referral to self-
help groups (e.g., Alcoholics Anonymous
[AA]) if needed.
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