NRS83004 Acute Mental Health

Assessment 2: Critical Review
Critically discuss the assessment of risks in acute mental health presentations.
Assessment type Essay
Word limit / length 2,000 words
Weighting 40%
Due date Sunday, Week 4
26 May 2019

Overview
Risk assessment in mental health settings is one of the most challenging roles of the mental health
professional. This assessment is designed to encourage you to explore the most recent evidence
that informs best practice in conducting risk assessments in acute mental health.
Learning outcomes
This assessment task is aligned to the following learning outcomes:
2. Appraise a range of acute care conditions engagement and interventions
3. Appraise a range of complex acute care conditions engagement and interventions
4. Critically reflect on acute mental health risk factors, engagement, observation and
interventions
Assessment details
Write an essay that:
– Provides a brief overview of the type of risk assessments that are necessary to consider in acute
mental health
– Critiques the effectiveness or accuracy of available risk assessment tools/methods
– Discuss how the risk assessment process could be improved or optimised, ensuring your
arguments are evidence based

Solution:

Introduction

The number of people experiencing different types of mental health disorder has been on the rise globally over the past few decades. In this view, risk assessment is considered as a fundamental practice in acute mental health. Notably, risk assessment is considered as an evaluation of a person’s mental status with the aim of diagnosing mental health conditions. Precisely mental health risk assessment is performed primarily for the purpose of identifying if a person is at risk causing harm self or others and also to capture the patient care needs. In light of this, this paper seeks to explore types of risk assessment are necessary for acute mental health and critique of risk assessment tools and methods. The essay will also establish how risk assessment process can be optimised.

Type of risk assessments that are necessary to consider in acute mental health

One of the assessments that should be considered in acute mental health is assessing the risk of harm to self. In this assessment, the patient state of mind is assessed including the ideation. This seeks to determine how frequent and intrusive the thoughts of the patient are with respect to the risk behaviour (Harriss & Hawton 2005). In this process, the level of despair that the client expresses is also determined. Intent statement by the patient on intending to harm themselves should also be noted. The service should focus on weighing the patient’s…..