Assessment
At Vitalis Wellbeing, we’re committed to finding the best course of action that works specifically for you.
The first step towards recovery is a diagnosis – we can only work towards a solution when we understand the problem.
Our thorough and compassionate assessment process (which has been validated for use in primary care) uses a personal interview and psychological measures commonly used in the NHS to inform us how best to approach your situation.
Client Interview
This part of the assessment is where you get to tell us how you’re feeling; however, we’re not expecting you to diagnose yourself. There is no pressure to give us an exact rundown of your mental health condition – that’s our job.
All of our staff are fully qualified and extremely compassionate. The interview will be structured, and we encourage you to tell us as much as possible. There’s no such thing as too much information when forming a mental health diagnosis, and every little bit can be useful.
We appreciate that it can be daunting to open up to someone you’ve never met, so don’t put too much pressure on yourself to remember every single life event that could have contributed. If you remember anything later on down the line, you can always let your therapist know.
Personal Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9)
This questionnaire will explore whether you have any issues related to a depressed mood – one of the most common complaints in our clients. You can expect to be asked questions such as:
Over the last two weeks, how often have you been bothered by any of the following problems?
- Little interest or pleasure in doing things?
- Feeling down, depressed, or hopeless?
- Trouble falling or staying asleep, or sleeping too much?
Generalised Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD7)
This is an easy-to-use questionnaire with seven points. It’s designed to screen for anxiety and measure how severe the symptoms are if detected. You can expect to answer questions such as:
Over the last two weeks, how often have you been bothered by any of the following problems?
- Feeling nervous, anxious or on edge?
- Not being able to stop or control worrying?
- Worrying too much about different things?
Post-Trauma Checklist (PCL-5)
This questionnaire is designed to screen for PTSD and to quantify and monitor the severity of the symptoms over time. You’ll be asked questions about stressful events in your past – for some; it could be multiple events.
We suggest that you talk about your worst experience or event and focus on how much it has bothered you in the past month. You can expect questions such as:
In the past month, how much were you bothered by:
- Repeated, disturbing, and unwanted memories of the stressful experience?
- Repeated, disturbing dreams of the stressful experience?
- Suddenly feeling or acting as if the stressful experience were actually happening again (as if you were actually back there reliving it)?
Data Protection
Your interviews will either take place in person or through a secure phone line. All of your data will be anonymised and stored in password-protected folders, and any hard copies will be kept locked away.
You have the right to request any of your information from us at any time, and we will only ever share your data with your consent. We understand that mental health requires the utmost confidentiality – we need you to be able to trust us.
The only time we will ever break this confidentiality is to help you if you’ve disclosed that you’re harming or planning to harm yourself or another person. In this instance, we will be legally obliged to inform the appropriate services.
We are here to help
Often, the hardest but most worthwhile thing we ever do is admit we need help.
Although it can seem daunting, our admissions process is designed to be as easy and welcoming as possible.
One of the things that sets Vitalis Wellbeing apart is how efficient our processes are – we know there isn’t time to wait around to be receiving professional, compassionate support, therefore once we have received a referral the designated therapist will contacted within one working day and an appointment will be offered to the client within a further 4 working days.
