Procedures and treatment
- provide urgent care for a sudden mental illness
- help you to manage a long-term mental health condition.
- provide second opinions and advice to other doctors and health professionals
- efer you to other health professionals.
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention,
and treatment of mental disorders.[1][2] These include various maladaptations
related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psychiatry.
Psychiatrists are medical doctors who are experts in mental health. They specialise in diagnosing and treating people with mental illness.
Psychiatrists have a deep understanding of physical and mental health – and how they affect each other.
They help people with mental health conditions such as schizophrenia, depression, bipolar disorder, eating disorders and addiction.
Initial psychiatric assessment of a person typically begins with a case history and mental
status examination. Physical examinations and psychological tests may be conducted. On occasion,
neuroimaging or other neurophysiological techniques are used.[3] Mental disorders are
often diagnosed in accordance with clinical concepts listed in diagnostic manuals such
as the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), edited and used by the World Health
Organization (WHO) and the widely used Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(DSM), published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). The fifth edition of the DSM (DSM-5)
was published in 2013 which re-organized the larger categories of various diseases and expanded
upon the previous edition
to include information/insights that are consistent with current research..
