NUR 375 - Exam 1

Autonomy

Involves self-determination, independence, and the right to refuse treatments even if health care professionals believe they are the “best” course of action

Active listening

Possibly the best, most important, and most effective intervention of all. It involves awareness of the patient’s verbal and nonverbal communication as well as of one’s own verbal and nonverbal communication

DSM-V

Reference designed to provide descriptions of psychiatric conditions to help standardize specific psychiatric illness. It does not provide a list of medical and psycho/social interventions for those mental illnesses

Symptoms

Nurses should be treating based off the patient’s presenting ________

Psychosis

A category of mental health problems that are distinguished by gross impairment in reality testing

Compulsion

A recurring, irresistible impulse to perform some act

Lability

Rapid changes in mood or affect

Hypomania

A clinical syndrome that is similar to but less severe than that described by mania or “manic episode”

Affect

Generally refers to a patient’s facial expression (objective)

Anosognosia

Lack of insight; symptom of severe mental illness experienced by some that impairs a person’s ability to understand and perceive his or her illness. It may be the single largest reason why people with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder refuse medications or do not seek treatment

Mania

A condition characterized by mood or behavior that is extremely elevated, expansive, or irritable

Delusion

A fixed, false belief that is firmly maintained even though it is not shared by others and is contraindicated by reality

Euphoria

A highly elevated mood often associated with mania

Mood

The patient’s self-report of prevailing emotional state (subjective)

Commitment

Involuntary admission in which the request for hospitalization did not originate with the patient

Hallucination

Perceptual distortion of arising from any of the five senses

Obsession

An idea, emotion, or impulse that repetitively and insistently forces itself into consciousness

Dementia

A chronic or persistent, generally progressive disorder of the mental processes caused by brain disease or injury and marked by memory disorders, personality changes, and impaired reasoning

Somatization

A tendency to experience and communicate psychological distress in the form of physical symptoms and to seek medical help to treat the physical symptoms

Seclusion

Separating the patient from others in a safe, contained environment with minimal stimulation

Resilience

The process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats, or significant sources of stress

Milieu

The controlled environment of treatment facilities in which patients are provided with a safe, stable, coherent, therapeutic environment

Concreteness

Literal thinking that is focused on the physical world. It is the opposite of abstract thinking

Ex: “what brings you to the hospital today” “the bus”

Delirium

An acutely disturbed state of mind that occurs with rapid onset and is characterized by restlessness, illusions, changes in level of consciousness, and incoherence of thought and speech

Dissociation

Separation and detachment of emotional significance and affect from an idea or situation

Regression

Retreating to an earlier and more comfortable level of adjustment

Denial

Disowning of consciously and intolerable ideas and impulses; refusal to perceive conflict

Repression

Involuntary and automatic regulation of unbearable ideas and impulses

Undoing

An attempt to actually and symbolically take away a previously consciously intolerable action or experience

Projection

Rejecting and imputing to others disowned aspects of the self; attributing intolerable wishes, emotional feelings, and motivations to other persons

Compensation

An attempt to make up for a real or fancies deficiencies. A real or imagined inadequacy is alleviated from over-compensation by substituting another goal to maintain own self-respect and gain others approval

Displacement

Redirection of emotional feeling from one idea, person, or object to another

Rationalization

An attempt by the ego to make unacceptable feelings and behavior consciously tolerable and acceptable

Appearance, Mood, Sensorium, Intellect, Thought processes

AMSIT acronym meaning

Appearance

Refers to the age, gender, race/ethnicity, weight, dress, hygiene, gait/movement, posture, and behavior of the patient

Mood

Refers to the patient’s subjective feelings, observed affect, and the congruency of this and the affect

Sensorium

Refers to the patients orientation, to person, place, time, and situation

Intellect

Refers to the patient’s intellectual ability

Above/below average as evidenced by…

Thought processes

Refers to processes exhibited by the patient that has evidence to go with it

Circumstantiality

The focus of a conversation drifts but often comes back to the point

Clanging

Severe form of flight of ideas whereas idea are related only by similar or rhyming sounds rather than actual meaning

Confabulation

Disturbance of memory, defined as the production of fabricated, distorted, or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world, without the conscious intention to deceive

Cognitive Distortions

Exaggerated or irrational thought patterns that are believed to perpetuate the effects of psychopathological states, especially depression and anxiety

Disorganized Thinking

A failure to “think straight”

Word salad

Confused or unintelligible mixture of seemingly random words and phrases

Thought blocking

Person stops speaking suddenly and without explanation in the middle of a sentence

Tangential thoughts

Train of thought of the speaker wanders and shows lack of focus, never returning to the initial topic of the conversation

Pressured Speech

A tendency to speak rapidly and frenziedly, as if motivated by an urgency not apparent to the listener

Poverty of thought

A thought disruption, frequently correlated with dementia, extreme depression, and schizophrenia, wherein there is lessened spontaneity and progression of thought as proven by speech with is general or full or mundane

Perseveration

The repetition of a particular response

Obsessive thoughts

Preoccupation with an idea or unwanted feeling or emotion, often accompanied by symptoms of anxiety

Neoglisms

New word formations

Flight of ideas

Rapid flow of thought, manifested by accelerated speech with abrupt changes from topic to topic

Echolalia

Echoing of another’s speech

Distractible speech

Subject of speech changed in response to an external stimulus

Distress, disability, divergence, diagnosis

4 D’s of mental illness

Threat to self, threat to others, not meeting Maslow’s lower order needs

Can be legally hospitalized by law if… (3)

Diathesis Stress Model

Most accepted explanation for mental illness:

Combination of genetic vulnerability and negative environment stressors

Beneficence

The duty to promote good

Least restrictive technique

Treatment and conditions of treatment which, separately and in combination, are no more intrusive or restrictive of freedom than reasonably necessary to achieve a substantial therapeutic benefit or to protect the individual from physical injury

Transference

Feelings that are transferred from patient to provider

Countertransference

Feelings that are transferred from provider to patient

Attentive Listening

Form of listening theorized by Freud; one of the most effective forms of verbal communication

Erikson and Piaget

Theorists who focused on stages of development

Calm, confident, compassionate, consistent, in control

5 C’s

Safety, physiological integrity, touchy-feely stuff

3 Priorities

Therapeutic relationship

Goal is to help the patient move towards optimal health

Clarifying techniques

Paraphrasing, restating, reflecting, and exploring are examples of *these* techniques…

“why” questions

Kind of question that is very NON-therapeutic

Ethnocentrism

Refers to individuals’ belief that their cultural values and practices are correct and superior to those of others

Verbal, chemical, physical

Three levels of interventions (in order)

Maslow

Theorized the hierarchy of needs

Pavlov and Skinner

Theorists who focused on behavioral modifications

Peplau

Focused on the art and science of nursing