Clinical method
Within clinical psychology, the clinical method is an approach to understanding and treating mental disorders that begins with a particular individual's personal history and is designed around that individual's psychological needs. It is sometimes posed as an alternative approach to the experimental method which focuses on the importance of conducting experiments in learning how to treat mental disorders, and the differential method which sorts patients by class (gender, race, income, age, etc.) and designs treatment plans based around broad social categories.[1][2]
Taking a personal history along with clinical examination allow the health practitioners to fully establish a clinical diagnosis . These methods require a logical, organized and structured approach in order to obtain all important information. A medical history of a patient provides insights into diagnostic possibilities as well as the patient's experiences with illnesses. The patients will be asked about current illness and the history of it, past medical history and family history, other drugs or dietary supplements being taken, lifestyle, and allergies.[3] The inquiry includes obtaining information about relevant diseases or conditions of other people in their family.[3][4]
Self-report methods may be used, including questionnaires, structured interviews and rating scales.[5]
References
- ^ S K Mangal (1 August 2013). General Psychology. Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd. p. 37. ISBN 978-81-207-0798-6.
- ^ Stephen Babu (22 December 2014). Psychology for Nurses. Elsevier Health Sciences. p. 10. ISBN 978-81-312-3791-5.
- ^ a b Jevon, Jevon, Phil, Philip (31 January 2011). Clinical Diagnosis. John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated. pp. 1–6. ISBN 9781444335163.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: year (link) - ^ McGrath, JJ; et al. (22 July 2014). "The association between family history of mental disorders and general cognitive ability". Translational Psychiatry. 4: e412 – via NCBI PMC.
{{cite journal}}: Explicit use of et al. in:|first=(help) - ^ Barker, Pistrang, Elliott, 1. Chris, 2. Nancy, 3. Robert (11 December 2015). Research Methods in Clinical Psychology. Print: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated. p. 116. ISBN 9781118773208.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: year (link)
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