Mental State Examination and Its Procedures-Narrative Review of Brazilian Descriptive Psychopathology.

Mental State Examination (MSE) is compared with physical examination as a reliable method of objective data investigation. There is a growing concern with psychiatric clinics, nosology, and the reliability of diagnostic interview methods as a source of valid diagnostic strategy. Efforts to achieve an international diagnosis protocol have been unsuccessful or polemical.

Attitudes of Brazilian Medical Students Towards Psychiatric Patients and Mental Illness: A Quantitative Study Before and After Completing the Psychiatric Clerkship.

Objective: The authors evaluated whether a psychiatric clerkship reduces stigmatized attitudes towards people with mental illness among medical students.

Methods: A 56-item questionnaire was used to assess the attitudes of medical students towards patients with mental illness and their beliefs about its causes before and after their participation in their psychiatric clerkship at a major medical school in Rio de Janeiro. Exploratory factor analysis identified four factors, reflecting "social acceptance of people with mental illness," "normalizing roles for people with mental illness in society," "non-belief in supernatural causes for mental illness," and "belief in bio-psychosocial causes for mental illness.