Neuropsychology and its relevance to clinical psychology in the non-specialist adult mental health setting.

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the prevalence of neuropsychological disorders in a non-specialist clinical psychology service in adult mental health service and also to explore the existence of neuropsychological symptoms in those subjects having psychiatric disorders. The yearly data of new referrals from the psychology register and record files of the patients was collected for this purpose and subsequently analysed. The two content scales of MMPI-2, ie. HEA2 and HEA3 were administered and scored. The results indicate that neuropsychological disorders were the second major referral source during this period and a significant difference (p = 0.001) was found between the scores of HEA-2 and HEA-3, which suggest that the subjects reported more neuropsychological symptoms than symptoms of general health concern during their initial routine psychological assessment. There is consistency in our findings regarding the questions raised in this study which indicates a prevalence of neuropsychological disorders in adult mental health settings. It also indicates a high rate of neurological symptoms in psychiatric patients with psychiatric disorders.