AANPCB PMHNP-C key terms

A structured observational assessment of appearance, behavior, speech, mood, affect, thought process and content, perception, cognition, and insight, used to establish a baseline and track change over time.

A nine-item self-report scale that scores each DSM depressive symptom from zero to three over the past two weeks, yielding a total that grades depression severity and tracks treatment response.

A seven-item self-report scale rating anxiety symptoms over the past two weeks on a zero-to-three scale, used to screen for generalized anxiety and monitor symptom change.

A brief scored cognitive screen sampling orientation, registration, attention, recall, language, and construction, producing a total score used to detect and trend cognitive impairment.

A thirty-point cognitive screening tool with added tasks for executive function, visuospatial ability, and abstraction, more sensitive than simpler screens to mild cognitive impairment.

A four-question screen asking about cutting down, annoyance at criticism, guilt about drinking, and eye-opener use; two or more affirmative answers suggest a problematic alcohol pattern.

A three-item alcohol screen scoring consumption frequency, typical quantity, and heavy-drinking days, with sex-specific cutoffs that flag hazardous drinking more sensitively than brief yes-no screens.

A structured inquiry into ideation, intent, plan, means access, prior attempts, protective factors, and acute versus chronic risk that guides level-of-care and safety planning decisions.

A structured interview that separates passive wish to die, active ideation, intensity of ideation, and behavior, giving standardized language for documenting and communicating suicide risk.

A collaboratively written, prioritized list of personal warning signs, coping strategies, distracting people and places, contacts to call, and means restriction steps for use during a suicidal crisis.

Reducing a patient's access to highly lethal methods such as firearms or stockpiled medication, a concrete risk-reduction step negotiated with the patient and often with family members.

A public-health framework in which universal screening for substance use is followed by short motivational conversations and, when indicated, referral to specialty addiction treatment.

The standard classification manual listing criteria sets, specifiers, and duration and impairment thresholds used to assign psychiatric diagnoses in United States clinical practice.

The working list of plausible conditions that could explain a presentation, ranked and then narrowed by targeted history, examination, and testing before a final diagnosis is assigned.

A physical illness such as hypothyroidism, anemia, sleep apnea, or delirium that produces psychiatric symptoms and must be excluded before attributing the presentation to a primary mental disorder.

A mood disorder defined by at least one manic episode lasting a week or requiring hospitalization, with or without depressive episodes, and not better explained by another condition.

A psychotic disorder requiring two or more core symptom domains, with at least one from delusions, hallucinations, or disorganized speech, plus functional decline and continuous signs for six months.

An initial onset of psychotic symptoms, warranting urgent medical workup, careful antipsychotic selection at low doses, and early coordinated specialty care to improve long-term outcome.

A depressive episode emerging in the weeks to months after childbirth, distinguished from brief and self-limited postpartum blues by persistence, severity, and functional impairment.

A ten-item self-report screen designed for the perinatal period that omits somatic items confounded by pregnancy and scores severity to guide referral and treatment decisions.

A childhood diagnosis of severe recurrent temper outbursts with persistently irritable mood between outbursts, created to reduce mislabeling of irritability as pediatric bipolar disorder.

Routine administration of validated symptom scales at each visit so that treatment adjustments are driven by objective score trajectories rather than impression alone.

A collaborative process in which the clinician presents evidence-based options with benefits and risks and the patient's values and preferences shape the chosen treatment plan.

Obtaining a patient's voluntary agreement after disclosing the purpose, risks, benefits, and alternatives of a proposed treatment, documented in the record and revisited when the plan changes.

A directive, person-centered counseling style using open questions, affirmation, reflection, and summary to elicit and strengthen the patient's own reasons for changing a health behavior.

A model describing movement through precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance, used to match interventions to a patient's current readiness rather than assuming action.

A first-line antidepressant class that blocks serotonin reuptake, useful across depressive and anxiety disorders, with common early adverse effects of nausea, headache, and transient activation.

A potentially life-threatening toxidrome of agitation, clonus, hyperreflexia, tremor, diaphoresis, and hyperthermia caused by excessive serotonergic activity, usually from drug combinations.

A rare idiosyncratic reaction to dopamine-blocking drugs marked by rigidity, high fever, autonomic instability, and elevated creatine kinase, requiring drug withdrawal and emergency supportive care.

Involuntary repetitive movements, often of the tongue, lips, and face, arising after prolonged dopamine-blocker exposure and assessed with standardized rating scales before adjusting therapy.

Scheduled measurement of weight, waist circumference, blood pressure, glucose, and lipids during antipsychotic therapy to detect and manage cardiometabolic adverse effects early.

A medication such as lithium or certain anticonvulsants that prevents recurrence of manic and depressive episodes and requires periodic serum levels and organ-function monitoring.

A clinical syndrome of tremor, vomiting, diarrhea, ataxia, confusion, and seizures occurring when serum lithium rises, often triggered by dehydration or interacting drugs, requiring urgent level measurement.

A gradual, planned dose reduction over weeks to months, sometimes with adjunctive therapy, that limits withdrawal seizures and rebound symptoms when discontinuing long-term benzodiazepine use.

A scored withdrawal scale rating ten signs and symptoms of alcohol withdrawal, used to guide symptom-triggered dosing of benzodiazepines and to identify patients needing higher levels of care.

Depression that has not responded adequately to two or more trials of antidepressants at therapeutic dose and duration, prompting reassessment of diagnosis and consideration of augmentation.

Remission is a sustained return to minimal or no symptoms, while relapse is the reappearance of active illness, often signaling that maintenance treatment was stopped too soon.

A provisional notation flagging a condition that remains possible but unconfirmed, prompting specific follow-up testing or observation before the diagnosis is finalized or dismissed.

The planned transfer or sharing of care with another clinician, including the reason, urgency, records sent, and a closed-loop confirmation that the patient was seen.