Intake interviews

Intake interviews can help to develop the therapeutic alliance. True or False ... 

Structured written summaries of intake interviews (see Figure 4.1 as an example) are placed into the clients chart. As you can see by this example, there are certain areas of information that you will want to investigate with the client during the intake. First, you want to document basic identifying information, as well... 

Figure 4.1 A condensed example of an intake interview template.

If a physical examination is not possible, then a therapist or counselor will have to assess physical health in an interview format. The therapist can ask specific questions about health conditions and symptoms in the intake interview, and then can address specific health concerns through referrals as part of the treatment plan. It may be that a particular non-life-threatening health problem cannot be addressed during the course of therapy or treatment, but can be listed as a quality-of-life problem in the treatment plan to be addressed at a later date. In that way, the therapist and client can brainstorm ideas about treating the problem while in therapy and develop a plan of action for addressing the health concern after therapy is completed. 

Some of these measures are part of larger, semistructured interviews administered by the therapist. The most commonly used assessments in this category are a family of instruments developed mainly in the Veterans Administration (VA) hospital system. The first instrument in this family is known as the Addiction Severity Index (ASI McLellan et al., 1985). The ASI assesses for a wide variety of biographical data, so it has the advantage of potentially being used as part of an intake interview. The ASI asks about consequences in a wide variety of life domains, and determines recent and lifetime patterns of drug and alcohol use. The ASI also detects recent and lifetime occurrence of problems in these different life domains (e.g., work). Each domain can be scored for the severity of the problems based upon the responses of the client and the clinical judgment of the interviewer. The ASI can be administered by computer to provide for rapid interpretation of answers. 

Besides the intake interview, which can help gather information, there are a number of assessment measures for determining the quality of an important interpersonal relationship. The questions on these measures generally ask about things like communication styles, satisfaction in the relationship, joint decision making, and in some cases, abusive behavior. Two of the most well-known measures are the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976) and the Marital Satisfaction Inventory (Snyder, 1979). Therapists and counselors also may choose to interview couples together (with the consent of client and partner), and some therapists may recommend couples therapy (see Chapter 5) as part of the overall approach to treatment if deemed appropriate to help the client. Relationship assessments can yield important information that may be useful when working with couples. 

Pharmacists need to know patients prescription and nonprescription medication intake use of nutritional supplements that may be pharmacologically active, physical, and psychiatric diagnoses and relevant laboratory test data when they are available. Usually, that information is available from the primary physician s referral and the documentation from the intake interview. Frequently, laboratory test data are not available because of the hospice philosophy of only doing tests that will directly affect patient outcomes. Renal function often can be estimated from the quantity and quality of the patient s urinary output balanced against intake. Carelhl dose titration is often needed in the absence of laboratory test data as patients metabolic and elimination capabilities decline. Sometimes, pharmacists make home vi.sils to get more complete medication histories, and to ascertain the family s understanding of medications and ability to administer them correctly. 

At the end of the intake interview, the caseworker and the jobseeker agree on an action plan specifying individual integration objectives and resources. 

Interview the patient and/or caregivers to obtain a complete medical history, which should include family medical history, current and past prescription and nonprescription medications, and dietary intake. Determine whether the patient is taking medication/supplements that could interfere with the therapy. 

A study that interviewed 13,388 women living in 11 US states over a period of 10-16 years (Kang and others 2005) showed that baseline cognitive performance was stronger in women who reported the highest intake of cruciferous vegetables compared to those with lower intake. 

Estimates from multiple logistic regression models including terms for age, study center, year of interview, education, parity, oral contraceptive use, and family history of ovarian and/or breast cancer and energy intake, according to the residual model. b Reference category. 

Estimates from conditional logistic regression models, conditioned on sex, age, study center, and adjusted for period of interview, education, alcohol consumption, tobacco smoking, body mass index, occupational physical activity, family history of kidney cancer, and total energy intake. b Reference category. 

Dietary habits and calcium intake during a previous decade of life usually cannot be determined reliably by means of an interview or questionnaire. These techniques yield data, but the data are likely to be worthless. Such technique as 1-weefc food diaries, recorded at the beginning and end of a year-long study period, have been used to gain reliable data. 

Concern about the possible harmful effects of caffeine on the outcome of pregnancy has evolved mainly from studies of animals which have shown a reduction in intrauterine fetal growth. However, the implications of these data for men are unclear, because of the differences in mode of exposure to caffeine, the amounts consumed, and caffeine metabolism. The possible effects of caffeine intake on the human fetus have been reviewed (SEDA-7, 8) the conclusion was that the scientific data currently available could not answer the question. In an analysis of interview and medical record data in 12 205 non-asthmatic women to evaluate the relation between coffee consumption and adverse outcomes in pregnancy, the findings were negative. 

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