Welcome to our Department
Psychiatry is the medical
specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of mental
disorders. These include various maladaptations related
to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary
of psychiatry.
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.
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.
The combined treatment of psychiatric
medication and psychotherapy has
become the most common mode of psychiatric treatment in current practice, but
contemporary practice also includes a wide variety of other modalities, e.g., assertive
community treatment, community reinforcement,
and supported employment. Treatment may be
delivered on an inpatient or outpatient basis,
depending on the severity of functional impairment or on other aspects of the
disorder in question. An inpatient may be treated in a psychiatric
hospital. Research and treatment within psychiatry as a whole are
conducted on an interdisciplinary basis, e.g., with epidemiologists, mental
health counselors, nurses, psychologists,
public health specialists, radiologists,
and/or social workers.
