Screening and Assessment Basics
Proper screening and assessment of patients is essential for providing good mental health care. Accurately formulating a patient's presenting problems into a diagnosis, when appropriate, ensures a good match with treatments known to be effective for reducing symptoms of that disorder. Good screening and assessment is also important in determining the appropriate level of care for a patient, in other words, knowing whether a patient can be treated in primary care versus specialty care is crucial for maintaining access to treatments for those who need them.
Screening and assessment is particularly important with patients who have a trauma history who may have PTSD. PTSD is a highly treatable condition and matching the diagnosis with the treatment is necessary for those treatments to work.
