Summary
In practice, screening procedures are used in all medical facilities specializing in mental health, although this detailed information about them may not be public. Nevertheless, the Central for Addiction and Mental Health publishes its research online, making it easy to find screening forms for any mental disorder. For example, for the identification of anxiety disorders, specialists use the patient health questionnaire (PHQ-9) or generalized anxiety disorder form (GAD-7) during first meetings with patients (CAMH, n.d.). In these forms, patients answer common questions about living habits and have four continuously ordered options: from “not at all” to “nearly every day”. Such forms, which are briefly completed, allow medical facilities to manage time devoted to identifying common disorders.
Answer to the Question
The question of whether administrative staff can perform screening or not is critical, as having non-specialized staff for these tests can increase the efficiency of a healthcare facility. Intuitively it seems that admin staff may give a test to patients because the paper filling is conducted individually. In addition, the screening forms are usually accompanied by a guide for the interpretation of results, so even an outsider may derive some possible results from the test. Nevertheless, as Rose and Devine (2022) indicate, screening in mental health is used mostly for healthcare providers with heavy workloads. In other words, screening is usually a preliminary step for further assessment that allows caregivers to identify patients with minimal additional effort. In this logic, finishing the test without further diagnosis is useless. Therefore, although staff technically may administer screening, real practice shows that follow-up diagnosis is crucial. As a result, screening presumes the presence of professionals who may interpret testing results qualitatively.
References
CAMH. (n.d.). Anxiety: Screening & assessment. Web.
Rose, M., & Devine, J. (2022). Assessment of patient-reported symptoms of anxiety. Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience, 16(2), 197-211. Web.