Psychiatric Diagnosis

Making a differential diagnosis

Liza Fisher

Ashford University

PSY 645 Psychopathology
Instructor: Yolanda Harper

August 30, 2017

Introduction

In order to generate a differential diagnosis, the medical offer or the psychologist should develop a list that shows the possible causes of the patient’s signs and symptoms. This is an important part as it facilitates the ruling possibilities of the findings in a clinical reasoning which leads to confirmation of the final diagnosis.

Collecting Data

Data collection is crucial activity that a psychologist or any clinical officer who is carrying out any differential diagnosis should consider. Information about the patient is collected from all available sources including the history and physical examination of the patient, recent discharge summaries or carrying out other diagnosis tests (Duffy 2013). Considering Ms. Suzanne as my patient and I as the psychologist, my data will be:

• Ms. Suzanne is in her first year in college. She has a hard time while talking to others or when around people especially her parents as her mother nags her many times to get married.

• She is always nervous when around others and she pulls her hair out and also eyelashes when she nervous. This problem started while she was 13 years and now she is 21 years old.

• Suzanne likes biting her nail and she stays up all the night worrying for no reason.

• Suzanne shies away from other people and she gets offended when around people. This makes her to be unable to keep boyfriend. She gets nervous with everyone.

Distilling the data into pertinent positive and negative findings

This is a list consisting of both positive and negative findings which may be from history, labs, other tests and physical exam (Wood & Goaz, 1985). The negative findings are that Suzanne is shy, nervous and has no friends. She can con feel comfortable even when in presence of her parents. She is aging and this is the time she gets into a first relationship. Though the findings are negative, she is secretive and open as she tells a story about herself without fear.

Creating a problem presentation

According to Wood & Goaz (1985), after carrying out the data collection process, the clinical officer or the psychologist should create a summary of the 1-2 sentences which contains the most relevant features of the positive and negative findings which are then translated to the appropriate medical terminology. This summary may concern various aspects such as the patient’s history, diagnostic tests, and physical exam. The problem representation should contain the semantic qualifiers and also should synthesize the related findings where possible into clinical syndromes. In my case, the problem presentation will be:

• Suzanne being 21 years now is always nervous, does not love to stay with her parents, inability to keep a boyfriend yet she is now in her first relationship. She is stressed almost every time.

Adopting a differential diagnosis framework

In order to generate the differential diagnosis, the phycologist should select a framework to be used such as an anatomic or physiologic framework among others (Wood & Goaz, 1985). In my case to be able to diagnosis Suzanne disease I will apply the physiological framework. This will apply since it seems that Suzanne is not suffering from medical diseases, but she has a weakness in interacting with other people. This makes the physiologic framework suitable.

Applying the pertinent positive and negative findings to the framework to generate differential diagnosis

Duffy (2013) argues that in order to be able to generate the diagnosis from you’re your findings, the psychologist or the medical offer should apply both the positive and negative pertinent to the framework chosen according to the research. In my case with Suzanne, applying the physiologic framework to generate my differential diagnosis, Suzanne is suffering from personalization disorder, depersonalization disorder, and depression. This is based on the signs and symptoms that Suzanne possesses like her nervous when around others.

References

Duffy, J. R. (2013). Motor Speech Disorders-E-Book: Substrates, Differential Diagnosis, and Management. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Wood, N. K., & Goaz, P. W. (1985). Differential diagnosis of oral lesions. Mosby Elsevier Health Science.