mental status?

The mental status exam is an assessment tool used in psychiatric nursing. If we have physical assessment forms for med-surg nursing, we have MSE for psych. In our school, we used a series of checklists exploring the following areas/components of mental health: appearance, behavior, affect and mood, orientation, memory, speech, intellect, judgment, insight to illness, thought content, though process and perceptual disturbance. Psych books explain these areas further and which questions to ask upon assessment.