Mental health is equally as important as physical health. Just the way one visits a physician for regular health check-ups, one should also visit a mental health professional for regular mental health check-ups. There is a stigma about mental health that needs to be broken. Lack of knowledge about mental health is a major drawback of the neglect of mental health assessment.
Before moving onto the importance of mental health assessments, why not first know what basically is mental health assessment, its purpose is, and how it helps an individual!
Read on!
MENTAL HEALTH ASSESSMENT
Before getting in detail, firstly let’s understand in brief what mental health assessment is!
A mental health assessment is an examination that is conducted to diagnose whether an individual is functioning on a healthy psychological, social, and developmental level or not. Mental health assessments are used as an aid to diagnose various neurological disorders, diseases, and drug or substance abuse. Other mental illnesses or disorders such as anxiety and stress can also be screened through mental health assessments.
PURPOSE OF MENTAL HEALTH ASSESSMENT
Now that we have an idea of mental health assessment, it’s important to know the purpose of mental health assessment and why one should opt for their assessments
The major purpose of mental health assessments is to make diagnoses, screening, and changes in the severity of the disorders. The assessments help the psychologist in gaining insight into the patient. Mental health assessments can be conducted for patients of any age or gender. The assessments of children and adolescents are based on the criteria of their age and their developmental stage. On the other hand, the assessments for adults are done for screening of new disorders, changes in the severity of their existing disorders and diagnoses and to make modifications in the current treatment plan. The assessments also prove to be helpful in assessing one’s personality, intelligence, attitude, and behavior
DIAGNOSIS
Do you know what all goes into the assessment of mental health?
The general practitioner may take a brief assessment and if there are symptoms that are severe, he may refer to a mental health professional for further diagnosis and treatment. The assessments are most of the time conducted using standardized questionnaires which are indeed paper-pencil tests. Once the conduction is done, the practitioner evaluates the conducted test and gives an overview of the evaluation to the patients. The practitioner informs the patient about the diagnosis he has made and the whereabouts of the treatment that would be involved further.
COMPONENTS OF MENTAL HEALTH ASSESSMENT
So just in case you are wondering what all do a mental health assessment assesses, in your rescue mental health assessments assesses everything from one’s intelligence, thought process, brain lesions, personality disorders, behavior dysfunctions, metabolic disturbances, phobias, stress, anxiety, depression, and even one’s thought content.
Mental health assessment works as an important tool for the diagnosis of mental health but there are disorders that are very difficult to be diagnosed. Before reaching the medical conclusions it’s essential to conduct multiple mental health assessments. With multiple mental health assessments and tests, there is a risk that an accurate diagnosis could be missed.
IMPORTANCE
By now you must have known mental health assessment and what all is involved in the assessment process but it’s high time we move onto the importance of mental health assessment and why just as physical check-up's mental health check-ups are equally important
Mental health assessments help in diagnosing the neurological disorders one is going through; there are many physical disorders that may have a psychological impact as well which could be known only through assessments.
Many individuals may be unaware of many mental issues they may be undergoing; mental health assessments can help in bringing them to light.
If an individual is under treatment, mental health assessments help the practitioner in knowing the severity of the disorder.
There are thought content that we all neglect which eventually results in impacting one’s thought process and personality. With the help of mental health assessments, neglected thoughts are known.
Mental health assessments give an insight of the patient to the practitioner.
Mental health assessments should be conducted over all ages and gender as mental illness can occur at any age, in fact, there are disorders that are connected with developmental stages. Regular check-ups are helpful in keeping a check on such disorders.
We are a group of health professionals, including Psychologists, Clinical psychologist, Rehabilitation Psychologist, Counsellors, Mindfulness Experts and Social Workers. We are working since 2018 in India to foster mental health.
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