Introduction

• Introduce yourself and ensure confidentiality
• Establish rapport
• Observe the patient (MSE)

Basic Demographics

• Remember NALEEMA
  • Name
  • Age
  • Living situation (relationship, children)
  • Education
  • Employment
  • Method of arrival (i.e. police, mental health act, voluntary)
  • Admission length (duration of symptoms)

PC

• Determine the symptoms which bought the patient in
• Did they come in voluntarily or were they detained?
• Who prompted them to come in?

HPC

• Start with an open-ended question
• Explore every symptom
  • Timeframe (when did you first begin having these problems? When was the last time you felt well?)
  • Triggers
  • Severity
• Presence and absence of symptoms
• Predisposing factors: things that ↑ the likelihood of developing a particular illness
• Precipitating factors: things that have contributed to causing the illness present at a particular time
  • Death
  • Divorce
  • Debt
  • Doesn’t take their medication
  • Drugs
  • Developmental
  • Disease