Assessing And Diagnosing Patients With Disruptive, Impulse-Control

Assessing patients with symptoms related to the disorders you are exploring this week pose some particular challenges for which the PMHNP should be prepared. Disruptive, impulse-control, and conduct disorders may involve aggressive outbursts, anger, deceitfulness, and unpredictability. Eliciting the needed interview and history data requires special care, self-control, and deliberateness on the part of the clinician. Several structured or semi-structured clinical interview tools exist for patients and, in the case of minors, for parents as well.