title: A systematic approach to clinical reasoning in psychiatry.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Clinical reasoning in psychiatry may be considered to be more challenging than in other branches of medicine because of its highly subjective nature. The literature on systematic approaches to the teaching of clinical reasoning in psychiatry is lacking, and we propose an approach that may assist educators and learners.
  
  
  METHODS
  A systematic approach with a theoretical underpinning in logical inferences will be proposed as a teaching and learning tool.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This paper complements our previous paper on psychiatric case formulation and expands our model of a theoretical framework for diagnostic reasoning and case formulation in psychiatry. Our approach also serves as a tool to assist in integrating the diverse clinical knowledge base in psychiatry.
authors.affiliation: Hunter New England Local Health District, and School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Newcastle, Callaghan, NSW, Australia. irosh.fernando@uon.edu.au
authors.forename: Irosh
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Fernando
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cohen
authors.forename: Frans
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Henskens
mesh_terms: D002983:Clinical Competence; D003657:Decision Making; D003863:Depression / Q000175:diagnosis; D003933:Diagnosis; D006801:Humans; D008128:Logic; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D011570:Psychiatry / Q000379:methods*; D013663:Teaching
keywords: clinical reasoning; diagnostic formulation; diagnostic reasoning; psychiatric case formulation