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A mental health assessment is a test or series of tests conducted by a doctor or psychologist to assess a person’s mental health status. It may include physical exams, questions about behavior and stress, and intelligence tests. The assessment is not always accurate and may require further investigation. It is important for people to be honest about their symptoms to receive appropriate treatment. A preliminary diagnosis may be made to start treatment immediately for those who are potentially suicidal or dangerously delusional. The assessment is a starting point in mental health care and may change as treatment progresses.
A mental health assessment is usually one or more tests performed by a doctor or other health care professional such as a psychologist to assess your mental health status. You may or may not be able to accurately diagnose mental problems or changes in mental behavior from other conditions such as injuries. It is usually a snapshot of a person’s mental health over a particular period of time, and each snapshot is different and can be made up of different components. These images or assessments can be helpful, though not entirely accurate or conclusive, because they may indicate a need for further investigation into mental health issues.
As stated earlier, there could be different pieces and parts to a mental health assessment. Doctors might start with a routine physical health exam, looking for any problems that might be affecting thinking or behavior. Tests might include blood tests or other scans if needed, such as electroencephalograms or MRIs if a brain injury is suspected. A physical exam isn’t always done, and a thorough scan isn’t always part of these tests either.
While the doctor does a physical exam, he usually asks patients questions about health, behavior, stress at work or home, and may test things like the ability to recall words or dates, or awareness of present events such as who is leader of the country is. Psychologists or other mental health professionals might just start with these questions, forgoing a physical exam. A concern with many mental health disorders is the risk that patients may commit suicide. People are very likely to be asked if they have this urge present or if they have attempted suicide in the past. As difficult as these questions may be to answer, honesty is important because it may hold the key to getting treatment that will help.
Before or after talking to a doctor or psychologist, people may be asked to take certain tests or questionnaires that describe their current mental state. Some people undergo extensive intelligence tests. Others spend a few minutes filling out questionnaires or answering multiple questions from the healthcare professional.
The forms to fill out that people have to fill out can vary in terms of questions and appearance. People might use these forms to rate feelings of depression, anxiety, or suicidality, or questions on a form might ask if the person is used to seeing or hearing things that other people don’t hear or see.
In fact, in some cases, people routinely fill out one of these forms when they start working with a new therapist or psychiatrist. Some people see these questionnaires as a short version of a mental health assessment. Such forms alone cannot tell everything about the disease and are certainly complicated by the problem that people are not always truthful in their responses.
Once a mental health evaluation is completed, and especially if any type of severe intelligence testing occurs, it may take a few days for doctors to establish a diagnosis. Not all people can wait a few days, and a preliminary diagnosis might be made sooner so that some types of treatment can start right away. In particular, whoever conducts this assessment wants to make sure that people who are potentially suicidal, dangerously delusional, or possibly showing signs of severe brain injury get the treatment they need right away. Waiting could have profoundly negative effects.
Mental health assessment is not perfect and not always correct in its conclusions. As the snapshot gains more detail from the treatment, another diagnosis for a mental health condition may be deemed more appropriate, changing the treatment. In particular, some illnesses tend to be notoriously difficult to diagnose, such as bipolar II, which often resembles depression. These assessments should be seen as the starting point of diagnostics in mental health care: very useful, but not always definitive.
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