Psych CASC / OSCE · Professional skills — mental state examination
Elicit and summarise a Mental State Examination — CASC communication station
MRCPsych/FRANZCP-style CASC: open-to-focused MSE elicitation, mood/affect, thought form/content, perception, cognition screen, multidimensional insight, risk, cultural sensitivity, and closing summary.
On this page
Study tools
Target exams
Station brief
Format. Communication station, approximately 7–10 minutes active time after reading. You are the psychiatry registrar in outpatient/ED assessment. [1]
Candidate instructions. Build rapport. Explore the person's current mental state across core domains without reading a checklist. Elicit mood (quote), observe affect, assess thought form and content (including suicidal ideation), screen for hallucinations carefully, sample cognition, explore insight multidimensionally, and check judgement with a brief real-world probe. Summarise sensitively and outline next steps. Avoid collusion, humiliation, and invented legal section numbers. [1][2]
References4ShowHide
- [1]Lenouvel E, Chivu C, Mattson J, et al. Instructional Design Strategies for Teaching the Mental Status Examination and Psychiatric Interview: a Scoping Review Acad Psychiatry, 2022.PMID 35318592
- [2]David AS Insight and psychosis Br J Psychiatry, 1990.PMID 2207510
- [3]Posner K, Brown GK, Stanley B, et al. The Columbia-Suicide Severity Rating Scale: initial validity and internal consistency findings from three multisite studies with adolescents and adults Am J Psychiatry, 2011.PMID 22193671
- [4]Lam PC, Lewis-Fernández R, Aggarwal NK The Cultural Formulation Interview: Building the Case for Cultural Competence in Clinical Care Psychiatr Serv, 2023.PMID 36722093