NRNP 6635: Psychopathology and Diagnostic Reasoning

Welcome to NRNP 6635: Psychopathology and Diagnostic Reasoning

How does an advanced practice nurse make a psychiatric diagnosis? How do you determine if a person’s behaviors or thoughts should lead to the diagnosis of a mental health disorder? What information do you need to collect in order to make an accurate and useful diagnosis?

This course is designed to increase your knowledge of collecting appropriate information from patients across the lifespan through various types of assessments and using that information to make an accurate diagnosis that will facilitate efficacious treatment planning. As you probably are well aware, it is not as simple as requesting information from the individual in front of you or requesting information from other reliable sources. Additional information and diagnostics are necessary in order to get an accurate and holistic snapshot of the internal processes leading to external expressions of the individual with whom you are working.

In this course, you will explore a number of factors that a psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner must take into account when assessing and diagnosing a client. This includes psychiatric factors, substance use, and medical history, as well as social, cultural, family, and environmental history. This additional information will become essential when applying diagnostic reasoning to differentiate between one diagnosis and another—as many of the symptoms of disorders can overlap—or to establish the presence of comorbidities. This process of investigation relies on a scholar-practitioner model, as it emphasizes the need to understand current theory and application as well as applying current standards of care to the diagnosis, all with the goal of appropriate treatment planning.

Welcome to the course!

Course Description

Psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioners need to have the knowledge and skills to provide comprehensive mental health evaluations in a safe and competent manner. In this course, the PMHNP will learn how to use knowledge of psychopathology and diagnostic reasoning for health promotion, psychiatric assessment, and to develop differential diagnosis for patients with psychiatric and substance use disorders across the life span.

Course Prerequisites

NURS 6501, NURS 6521, NURS 6512, NURS 6052, NURS 6630

Course Learning Outcomes

By the conclusion of this course, you should be able to:

1. Analyze factors that inform the expression, course, and prevalence of psychopathology
2. Analyze psychiatric assessment strategies and tools
3. Apply DSM-5-TR criteria to the assessment and diagnosis of patients with mental disorders across the lifespan
4. Apply concepts, theories, and principles related to patient interviewing and diagnostic reasoning
5. Document patient information using appropriate formats and methods for advanced practice nurses in mental health settings

Course Summary: