Arab Board Psychiatry Clinical Exam key terms

A structured clinical description of a patient's appearance, behaviour, speech, mood, affect, thought form and content, perception, cognition, insight and judgement, recorded at the time of interview to document current psychiatric functioning.

A concise clinical explanation that integrates predisposing, precipitating, perpetuating and protective factors from biological, psychological and social domains to account for the patient's presentation and to guide a management plan.

An approach that understands mental disorder as arising from interacting biological, psychological and social factors, used to organise assessment, formulation and multidisciplinary treatment planning rather than relying on a single cause.

The patient's awareness of having an illness, of its nature and cause, and of the need for treatment; graded from complete denial through partial awareness to full acceptance, and important for consent and adherence.

A functional, decision-specific legal and clinical judgement that a person can understand, retain, weigh and communicate information relevant to a particular decision, assessed at the time the decision must be made.

Voluntary agreement to an intervention after receiving and understanding adequate information about its nature, purpose, risks, benefits and alternatives, given by a person with capacity, free from coercion.

The professional duty to protect information disclosed by a patient, sharing it only with consent or where a lawful and proportionate exception applies, such as serious risk to others or statutory reporting requirements.

The principle that a clinician may breach confidentiality to protect an identifiable third party from serious foreseeable harm, typically after risk assessment and, where possible, within local legal frameworks and multidisciplinary consultation.

A structured process of estimating the likelihood, imminence and severity of harm to self or others by integrating static and dynamic factors, protective factors and clinical judgement into a documented management plan.

Characteristics associated with increased likelihood of suicide, including prior attempts, male sex, older age, depression, psychosis, substance misuse, hopelessness, access to lethal means, isolation and recent loss, used to stratify risk.

A negative cognitive-affective state of expecting the future to be bleak with no possible improvement; a strong psychological predictor of suicidal ideation and behaviour, and a target for cognitive therapy.

A fixed false belief held with strong conviction despite contradictory evidence and not shared by the person's culture or subculture; it is a disorder of thought content and may be bizarre or non-bizarre.

A perception experienced in the absence of an external stimulus, occurring in any sensory modality; auditory hallucinations are most characteristic of psychotic illness, while visual hallucinations suggest organic causes.

Schneiderian phenomena considered historically characteristic of schizophrenia, including thought insertion, withdrawal or broadcasting, made feelings, actions or impulses, passivity, and auditory hallucinations discussing or commenting on the patient.

A clinical state of impaired reality testing, typically with delusions, hallucinations, disorganised thinking or behaviour, and reduced insight, which may arise from psychiatric, medical, neurological or substance-related causes.

A chronic psychotic disorder with positive, negative and cognitive symptoms lasting at least six months with functional decline, diagnosed after excluding mood disorder, substance use and medical causes.

Deficits in normal function such as blunted affect, poverty of speech, anhedonia, asociality and avolition; they predict poorer functional outcome and respond less well to antipsychotics than positive symptoms.

A distinct period of abnormally elevated, expansive or irritable mood with increased energy lasting at least one week or requiring hospitalisation, accompanied by grandiosity, decreased need for sleep and impulsive behaviour.

A lesser elevation of mood and activity lasting at least four consecutive days, noticeable to others but without marked functional impairment, psychotic features or need for hospitalisation.

A mood disorder characterised by episodes of mania or hypomania, usually alternating with depressive episodes, classified as type I, type II or cyclothymia according to severity and pattern of episodes.

A recurrent, persistent, intrusive and unwanted thought, urge or image that causes marked anxiety and is usually resisted or appraised as senseless; a core feature of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

A repetitive behaviour or mental act performed in response to an obsession or according to rigid rules, aimed at reducing distress or preventing a feared event, and excessive or not realistically connected to that event.

A cognitive-behavioural treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder in which the patient is systematically exposed to anxiety-provoking triggers while refraining from performing compulsive rituals, allowing anxiety to habituate.

A trauma-related disorder with intrusion, avoidance, negative alterations in cognition and mood, and hyperarousal lasting over one month after exposure to actual or threatened death, serious injury or violence.

An intrusive, vivid re-experiencing of a traumatic event, felt as though the event is happening again in the present, distinct from ordinary remembering and a hallmark intrusion symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder.

A trauma-related syndrome of intrusion, dissociation, avoidance and arousal occurring within one month of a traumatic event and lasting up to one month; it may predict later post-traumatic stress disorder.

An acute, fluctuating disturbance of attention and awareness with altered cognition, usually caused by an underlying medical condition, medication or substance, and a medical emergency requiring prompt investigation.

A chronic, progressive decline in multiple cognitive domains sufficient to impair independence in daily activities, not explained by delirium, with causes including Alzheimer's disease, vascular disease and other neurodegenerations.

A brief, structured cognitive screening test scoring orientation, registration, attention, recall, language and construction; useful for tracking change but affected by education and not diagnostic on its own.

A potentially fatal toxidrome of excess serotonergic activity, with agitation, diaphoresis, tremor, hyperreflexia, clonus and hyperthermia, usually triggered by combining serotonergic drugs or overdose.

A rare, life-threatening reaction to dopamine-blocking drugs characterised by rigidity, hyperthermia, autonomic instability and altered consciousness, managed by stopping the drug and supportive care.

A late-onset involuntary movement disorder, typically oro-facial choreoathetoid movements, associated with prolonged dopamine antagonist exposure; it may persist after the drug is stopped and requires careful monitoring.

Drug-induced movement disorders from dopamine blockade, including acute dystonia, parkinsonism, akathisia and tardive syndromes, which are common, distressing and a frequent cause of non-adherence.

An atypical antipsychotic reserved for treatment-resistant schizophrenia, requiring regular blood monitoring because of agranulocytosis risk, and also associated with myocarditis, seizures and constipation.

Failure to achieve adequate symptom response despite trials of at least two different antipsychotics at adequate dose and duration with confirmed adherence; clozapine is the evidence-based next step.

A mood stabiliser with antimanic and prophylactic properties, requiring serum level monitoring and checks of renal and thyroid function because of its narrow therapeutic index and toxicity risk.

A time-limited syndrome after cessation or reduction of heavy alcohol use, ranging from tremor and autonomic overactivity to seizures and delirium tremens, managed with benzodiazepines and thiamine.

A thiamine deficiency emergency presenting with ophthalmoplegia, ataxia and confusion, most often in alcohol dependence; untreated it can progress to Korsakoff syndrome with irreversible amnesia.

A collaborative, person-centred counselling style that explores and strengthens a patient's own motivation and commitment to change by eliciting and reflecting change talk rather than confronting resistance.

A structured psychological approach in addiction treatment that identifies high-risk situations, builds coping skills, addresses apparently irrelevant decisions and plans responses to lapses to prevent full relapse.

A neurodevelopmental disorder of persistent inattention and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity, present before age twelve and impairing across settings, diagnosed using collateral information and rating scales.

A neurodevelopmental disorder of persistent deficits in social communication and interaction with restricted, repetitive behaviours and interests, present early in development and causing functional impairment.

The patient's displacement onto the therapist of feelings, expectations and patterns originally linked to significant early figures, which can be interpreted to illuminate recurring relational difficulties.

The clinician's emotional reactions to the patient, arising from the clinician's own history and from the patient's interpersonal pull; recognised and used reflectively, it informs formulation and prevents enactment.

A structured, time-limited psychotherapy that identifies and modifies unhelpful thoughts and behaviours maintaining distress, using agenda setting, homework and behavioural experiments within a collaborative therapeutic relationship.

A class of antidepressant that blocks serotonin reuptake, first-line for depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder, with onset over weeks and common early adverse effects such as nausea and activation.

A somatic treatment delivering a controlled generalised seizure under anaesthesia and muscle relaxation, indicated for severe or psychotic depression, catatonia and treatment-resistant mood disorder.

A syndrome of abnormal psychomotor activity including stupor, mutism, posturing, waxy flexibility, negativism and excitement, occurring in mood, psychotic and medical conditions and responding to benzodiazepines or electroconvulsive therapy.

A state of heightened arousal, motor restlessness and potential aggression requiring rapid assessment of cause, verbal de-escalation, environmental safety and, if necessary, cautious pharmacological sedation.