Deck 4: The Assessment Report Process: Interviewing the Client and Writing the Report

Question 1

In the mental status exam, concepts such as circumstantial, flight of ideas, logical and organized, loose associations, tangential, and poverty refer to the client's:

A) content of thought.
B) thought processes.
C) cognitive functioning.
D) affect and mood.
E) All of these are true.

Answer 1

thought processes.

Question 2

Which of the following is NOT a way an assessment report should be used?

A) As a mechanism to assist in providing insight to clients for therapy
B) As a means of suggesting treatment options in counseling
C) To suggest educational services for students with special needs
D) To protect clinicians from liability concerns by keeping a second set of reports which is hidden from clients
E) To provide feedback for the courts in making difficult decisions

Answer 2

To protect clinicians from liability concerns by keeping a second set of reports which is hidden from clients

Question 3

Which of the following is suggested when writing reports?

A) Describe your feelings (not behaviors) about the client and his or her issues.
B) State your opinion throughout the report.
C) Use labels regarding your client as a valuable tool for your reader.
D) Take a stand if you feel strongly that the information warrants it.
E) Points out only the weaknesses of your client; his or her strengths are unimportant for the report.

Answer 3

Take a stand if you feel strongly that the information warrants it.

Question 4

Which of the following categories are NOT generally found in a report?

A) Significant medical/counseling history
B) Substance use and abuse
C) Vocational and educational history
D) "Other" pertinent background information
E) All of these are often found in a report.

Question 5

Which of the following is NOT found in a mental status report?

A) The client's appearance and behavior
B) The client's stability at work/school/home life
C) The client's emotional state
D) The client's thought components
E) The client's cognitive functioning

Question 6

Which of the following is NOT a disadvantage of the structured interview?

A) It can cause the examiner to miss important pieces of information because items are pre-determined.
B) It creates an atmosphere that might be experienced as dehumanizing by the client.
C) It can result in misinterpretation of items by clients, or of client responses by examiners, when working with minority clients or others who may be less familiar with items.
D) It may focus too much on one area at the exclusion of others.

Question 7

Delusions, distortions of body image, hallucinations, obsessions, or suicidal or homicidal ideation all refer to the client's:

A) affect.
B) mood.
C) thought components.
D) cognitive functioning.
E) All of these are true.

Question 8

Which of the following is important when gathering family background information?

A) To gather as much detail as possible and report all that is obtained.
B) That information is focused on the aspects of the family that may have affected the presenting problem.
C) The hypotheses or your opinion concerning the client's family are offered in this section of the report.
D) All of these are important.

Question 9

In assuring that the information gathering process for the report is adequate, clinicians need to take into account which of the following?

A) The breadth and depth of the assessment
B) The type of interview being conducted
C) The kinds of assessment instruments that will be used
D) Determining if other collateral information will need to be gathered
E) All of these must be taken into account.

Question 10

The manner in which a client thinks reveals much about how he or she comes to understand and make meaning of the world. In the mental status exam, this refers to the client's:

A) affect.
B) mood.
C) thought components.
D) cognitive functioning.
E) All of these are true.

Question 11

Which of the following is suggested when writing reports?

A) Use shorter rather than longer words.
B) Maximize the number of difficult words.
C) Use the jargon of your professional associations.
D) Use acronyms to save space.
E) Use passive verbs.

Question 12

Which of the following is generally NOT included in the demographic information section of the report?

A) Name of client
B) Birth date of client
C) Address, phone number, and e-mail address of client
D) Place of birth
E) Ethnic background of client

Question 13

All of the following affirm clients' right to access their test data and reports EXCEPT:

A) Jaffee v. Redmond.
B) Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
C) Freedom of Information Act.
D) Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Question 14

Which of the following is NOT considered a part of the client's content of thought (as opposed to thought processes)?

A) Delusions
B) Distortions of body image
C) Hallucinations
D) Obsessions
E) Circumstantiality

Question 15

Terms like constricted, full, appropriate, inappropriate, content, labile, flat, blunted, or exaggerated refer to the client's:

A) affect.
B) mood.
C) thought components.
D) cognitive functioning.
E) All of these are true.

Question 16

Which of the following is NOT suggested in the text as guidelines to be cognizant of in order to adequately interview a client?

A) Establish trust and rapport.
B) Provide an environment that is comfortable and assures confidentiality.
C) Focus on verbal and nonverbal cues in an effort to gather all of what the person is communicating to you.
D) Be confrontational if necessary regarding substance use and abuse.

Question 17

Which of the following is NOT an advantage of the structured interview?

A) It offers broad enough areas of content to cover topics a practitioner may otherwise have missed.
B) It increases the reliability of results due to the fact that all prescribed items will be covered.
C) It allows the client the freedom of response to discuss other items, if need be.
D) It helps the examiner to focus on specific items that may otherwise be missed or difficult to cover during an unstructured interview.

Question 18

Which of the following is NOT true about the clinical interview?

A) It helps to set a tone for the types of information that will be covered.
B) It allows the clinician to examine areas of the client's life that are not critical to the overall assessment process.
C) It helps the client to become desensitized to intimate and personal information.
D) It allows the examiner to assess non-verbals.
E) It gives the client and examiner the opportunity to assure that they can work together.

Question 19

Which of the following is NOT an advantage of the unstructured interview?

A) It assures all topics are adequately discussed.
B) It creates an atmosphere that is conducive to rapport building.
C) It allows the client to feel as if he or she is directing the interview thus allowing the client to discuss items that he or she deems important.
D) It offers the potential for greater depth of information and the uncovering of underlying issues that the client might otherwise avoid revealing.

Question 20

Which is true about computer-driven assessment reports?

A) They assure coverage of a wide range of topics.
B) They are not as reliable as clinician interviews.
C) The case reports generated by them are generally of poor quality.
D) All of these are true.
E) None of these are true.

Question 21

An advantage of the semi-structured interview is that it draws from both the structured and unstructured interview styles, thus allowing the interviewer the freedom to flow back and forth between the two styles.

Question 22

Due to the nature of the unstructured interview, the interviewer might miss information because he or she is "caught up" in the client's story and not following a prescribed set of questions.

Question 23

It is good practice to assess for lethality during most psychological related assessments.

Question 24

Generally, the diagnosis section of the assessment report includes clinical diagnosis, psychosocial and environmental factors, and medical conditions.

Question 25

Today, there are one or two established formats for writing test reports.

Question 26

Whether a client is oriented to time, place, and person; an assessment of the client's short- and long-term memory; an evaluation of the client's knowledge base and intellectual functioning; and a statement about the client's level of insight and ability to make judgments all refer to the client's:

A) affect.
B) mood.
C) thought components.
D) cognitive functioning.
E) All of these are true.

Question 27

Often, the recommendations section of the report will have new facts or information because something may have been missed earlier.

Question 28

Which of the following is NOT considered part of the client's thought processes (as opposed to content of thought)?

A) Circumstantiality
B) Coherence of thoughts
C) Flight of ideas
D) Logical thinking
E) Suicidal or homicidal ideation

Question 29

In the results section of the assessment report, one should:

A) give out raw scores only.
B) offer interpretations of the data.
C) offer converted or standardized test scores that the reader will understand.
D) do none of these.

Question 30

The recommendations section of the report should flow naturally from the rest of the report.

Question 31

The breadth of the assessment has to do with assuring that one is using techniques that reflect the intensity of the issue(s) being examined.

Question 32

The client's mood refers to his or her prevailing feeling state, while the client's affect refers to his or her long-term, underlying emotional well-being.

Question 33

Generally, the skilled examiner will write a report that is two to five pages in length, single-spaced.

Question 34

The depth of the assessment has to do with casting a wide enough net to assure that the examiner has done all that is necessary to adequately assess what he or she is looking for.

Question 35

Generally, when incorporating a mental status into a report, all four areas are given their own separate paragraph.

Question 36

In the diagnosis section of the assessment report, it is generally a good idea to include:

A) DSM mental health diagnosis.
B) psychosocial and environmental factors (V and Z codes).
C) ICD medical diagnosis.
D) all of these.

Question 37

Which of the following is NOT true about the summary and conclusion section of the report?

A) It pulls together all of the information that has been gathered.
B) It is often the only section of the report that is read by others.
C) It should have no new information except for inferences that are logical, sound, defendable, and based on facts that are mentioned in your report.
D) It should be succinct and relevant.
E) All of these are true.

Question 38

The summary and conclusion section of the report gives you the opportunity to add new information or facts that may have been excluded elsewhere.

Question 39

Which of the following is NOT considered a part of the client's cognitive functioning?

A) Client orientation to time, place, and person
B) Short- and long-term memory of client
C) Obsessional thinking of client
D) Knowledge base and intellectual functioning of client
E) Client insight and judgment

Question 40

The presenting problem, or reason for referral, part of the report gives an explanation of why the client has come to seek services.

Question 41

When it is assessing for lethality, which of the following is NOT important to consider?

A) The continuum of their ideation to rehearsal
B) Protective factors
C) Risk factors
D) Ability to contract for safety
E) None of these; they are all important.

Question 42

People will often practice or do a "dry run" before they act on killing themselves.

Question 43

Before people attempt to take their own lives or that of someone else, their thoughts and actions often lie along a continuum. Rank order the following items along this continuum.

A) Gather or purchase items (means) to carry out the plan.
B) Develop a plan.
C) Rehearse the plan.
D) Have thoughts about killing self or other.
E) Make any final preparation needed to carry out the plan.