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Psychiatry medical question bank

Practise every psychiatry topic with explained SBAs.

Recall Engine has 1,000+ psychiatry questions across 50+ topics in 2 body systems. Every question explains each option.

questions
1,000+
topics
50+
topic notes
40+
clinical skills guides
10+
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Psychiatry by body system

Psychiatry has 50+ topics in 2 body systems. Each section shows how many questions it has and every topic it covers.

Nervous system

80+ questions across 2 topics. It also has 2 topic notes.

  • Cognitive impairment: assessment and reversible causes
  • Dementia: diagnosis, subtypes, and treatment

Mental health and behaviour

1,000+ questions across 50+ topics. It also has 30+ topic notes and 10+ clinical skills guides.

  • Abbreviated Mental Test Score
  • Acute behavioural disturbance
  • Adult mental state examination
  • Adult psychiatric history
  • Ageing and mental health in later life
  • Anxiety disorders
  • Bereavement after pregnancy loss
  • Bipolar disorder
  • Bipolar disorder: mania and mood stabilisers
  • Child mental health: risk, resilience, and assessment
  • Child mental state examination
  • Child psychiatric history
  • Child psychiatric interview
  • Cognitive decline: patient and collateral history
  • Delusions, hallucinations, and thought disorder
  • Dementia: assessment, types, and management
  • Depression: course and treatment
  • Depression: diagnosis and treatment
  • Diabetes and kidney disease: psychological care
  • Drug and alcohol misuse history
  • Drug and alcohol presentations
  • Eating disorder history taking
  • Eating disorders
  • Eating disorders: medical risk in adults
  • ECT: counselling for severe depression
  • ECT: pre-procedure checks
  • ECT: recovery and discharge
  • Extrapyramidal side effects of antipsychotics
  • Intellectual disability: mental illness and reasonable adjustments
  • Involuntary admission: Egyptian mental health law
  • Liaison psychiatry: mental and physical illness
  • Low mood in older adults: GDS-15
  • Medically unexplained symptoms
  • Mini-Cog cognitive screening
  • Obsessive-compulsive disorder
  • Perinatal mental health: pregnancy, birth, and postpartum
  • Personality disorders
  • Personality disorders: clusters and management
  • Psychiatric history
  • Psychiatric history and mental state examination
  • Psychiatric history in medical patients
  • Psychiatric history taking
  • Psychiatry: classification and assessment
  • Psychological therapies: formulation and choice
  • Psychosis and schizophrenia
  • Psychosis and schizophrenia: psychopathology
  • Reactions to stress including PTSD
  • Schizophrenia and related psychoses
  • Self-harm and suicide risk
  • Sleep disorders: insomnia, hypersomnia, and parasomnias
  • Stress-related disorders: PTSD, acute stress, and adjustment
  • Substance use disorders
  • Suicide: prevention and aftercare

Psychiatry sample questions

These 5 are published psychiatry questions shown exactly as students see them. Open an answer to see why it is right and why every other option is wrong.

Question 1 · Psychiatry, Clinical

A 26-year-old shop manager has intrusive doubts that she has left the gas on, and she checks the cooker and door locks for about 75 minutes each morning. She recognises the doubts as her own and excessive. She still works full time and manages daily life, though she is often late. She would rather not take medication and asks which therapy would help most. What is the most appropriate initial treatment?

  1. A. Referral to an inpatient specialist OCD programme
  2. B. Low-intensity CBT including exposure and response prevention
  3. C. Psychodynamic psychotherapy to explore the origins of her doubts
  4. D. Mentalisation-based therapy delivered over 18 months
  5. E. An SSRI combined with intensive CBT and exposure work
Show the answer and explanation

Answer: B. Low-intensity CBT including exposure and response prevention

She has OCD (intrusive doubts recognised as her own, with checking taking more than 1 hour a day) with mild functional impairment and a preference for a low-intensity approach. NICE CG31 offers low-intensity psychological treatment including ERP, up to 10 therapist hours: brief individual CBT with structured self-help materials, brief CBT by telephone, or group CBT. If she cannot engage or it is not enough, the next step is an SSRI or more intensive CBT with ERP (over 10 hours).

Why the other options are wrong

  • A. Referral to an inpatient specialist OCD programme: Inpatient care is for risk to life, severe self-neglect, extreme distress, or long-term failure of adequate treatment; she works full time and is untreated.
  • C. Psychodynamic psychotherapy to explore the origins of her doubts: NICE finds no convincing evidence for psychological therapies other than cognitive and behavioural ones, psychoanalysis included, as specific treatments for OCD.
  • D. Mentalisation-based therapy delivered over 18 months: Mentalisation-based therapy was developed for personality disorder and does not target the obsession and compulsion cycle that exposure and response prevention breaks.
  • E. An SSRI combined with intensive CBT and exposure work: Combined treatment is for severe functional impairment; her impairment is mild and she prefers to avoid medication.

Key point: NICE stepped care for adult OCD: mild impairment, low-intensity CBT with ERP (up to 10 therapist hours); moderate, an SSRI or more intensive CBT with ERP; severe, both together. Non-CBT therapies lack convincing evidence.

References

Question 2 · Psychiatry, Clinical

A psychiatrist wants a rating scale to measure the severity of a patient's obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Which scale is named for this?

  1. A. Positive and Negative Symptom Scale
  2. B. Young Mania Rating Scale
  3. C. Hamilton Depression Rating Scale
  4. D. Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale
  5. E. Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale
Show the answer and explanation

Answer: E. Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale

The Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) is the rating scale for obsessive-compulsive disorder. The other scales belong to anxiety, mania, schizophrenia, and depression.

Why the other options are wrong

  • A. Positive and Negative Symptom Scale: The Positive and Negative Symptom Scale is a scale for schizophrenia.
  • B. Young Mania Rating Scale: The Young Mania Rating Scale is the scale for mania.
  • C. Hamilton Depression Rating Scale: The Hamilton Depression Rating Scale is a scale for depression.
  • D. Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale: The Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale is the scale for anxiety.

Key point: Y-BOCS is the psychiatric rating scale for obsessive-compulsive disorder.

References

Question 3 · Psychiatry, Clinical

A 46-year-old teacher was told 3 weeks ago that she has multiple sclerosis; her neurologist finds only mild disability and says she is fit to work. Since then she has felt tearful and worried about the future and has slept poorly. She has not gone back to work, has handed the cooking and school runs to her husband, and says she cannot cope with ordinary tasks. She still enjoys time with her children, eats normally, feels no guilt, has no thoughts of self-harm, and her mood lifts when friends visit. Which DSM-5-TR diagnosis fits best?

  1. A. Generalized anxiety disorder
  2. B. Illness anxiety disorder
  3. C. A normal reaction needing no diagnosis
  4. D. Adjustment disorder with depressed mood
  5. E. Major depressive disorder, single episode
Show the answer and explanation

Answer: D. Adjustment disorder with depressed mood

DSM-5-TR adjustment disorder is emotional or behavioural symptoms within 3 months of an identifiable stressor, with distress out of proportion or impaired functioning, that do not meet criteria for another disorder and settle within 6 months after the stressor or its consequences end. Her tearfulness and worry began with the diagnosis and have kept her off work and out of her usual roles at home although she is fit to work, which is more than a normal reaction. They stop short of a depressive episode because interest, appetite, and self-worth are preserved and her mood lifts with company.

Why the other options are wrong

  • A. Generalized anxiety disorder: Generalized anxiety disorder is excessive worry about many things for at least 6 months; her worry is recent and centred on one new stressor.
  • B. Illness anxiety disorder: Illness anxiety disorder is preoccupation with having or getting a serious illness despite few symptoms; she has a confirmed diagnosis and is reacting to it.
  • C. A normal reaction needing no diagnosis: Distress is expected after such news, but she has stayed off work and given up her usual roles at home although she is fit to work; that impairment makes it an adjustment disorder.
  • E. Major depressive disorder, single episode: A major depressive episode needs pervasive low mood or loss of interest with several other symptoms; she keeps her interest, appetite, and self-worth, and her mood lifts with company.

Key point: Distress within 3 months of a stressor such as a new diagnosis, with impaired functioning but without full criteria for another disorder, is DSM-5-TR adjustment disorder; persistent pervasive low mood or suicidality points to a depressive episode instead.

References

Question 4 · Psychiatry, Clinical

A 44-year-old woman is referred to psychiatry with 6 months of episodes in which her husband finds her confused, sweating, and acting out of character, sometimes with double vision. Episodes happen before breakfast or after her morning run, once with a brief seizure, and each ends within minutes of a sweet drink. Between episodes her mental state is normal. She does not have diabetes, takes no medicines, and a CT head is normal. What is the most appropriate next step?

  1. A. Measure plasma glucose during an episode
  2. B. Start an antipsychotic for episodic psychosis
  3. C. Arrange an EEG for temporal lobe epilepsy
  4. D. Refer for CBT for panic disorder
  5. E. Send a urine drug screen for stimulants
Show the answer and explanation

Answer: A. Measure plasma glucose during an episode

Insulinoma causes fasting hypoglycaemia whose symptoms, confusion, personality change, visual disturbance, and seizures, can mimic psychiatric or neurological illness. Whipple triad confirms hypoglycaemia as the cause: symptoms while fasting, a low glucose at the time, and relief with carbohydrate. Measuring plasma glucose during an episode is therefore the key step, followed by a supervised fast with insulin and C-peptide if it is low.

Why the other options are wrong

  • B. Start an antipsychotic for episodic psychosis: She has no delusions or hallucinations, and episodes that come with fasting and resolve with sugar point to a metabolic cause, not psychosis.
  • C. Arrange an EEG for temporal lobe epilepsy: Seizures can be a feature of hypoglycaemia, and the tie to fasting and rapid relief with sugar make a low glucose the first thing to prove.
  • D. Refer for CBT for panic disorder: Panic causes sweating and fear but not confusion, double vision, or seizures, and it is not relieved by a sweet drink.
  • E. Send a urine drug screen for stimulants: Stimulant use does not explain episodes tied to fasting that resolve with sugar.

Key point: Episodic confusion, behaviour change, or seizures linked to fasting or exercise and relieved by carbohydrate suggest hypoglycaemia such as an insulinoma; measure glucose during an episode before making a psychiatric diagnosis.

References

Question 5 · Psychiatry, Clinical

What is the median time from first symptom to treatment in bipolar disorder?

  1. A. 1 year
  2. B. 2 years
  3. C. 10 years
  4. D. 12 years
  5. E. 20 weeks
Show the answer and explanation

Answer: C. 10 years

The median time from first symptom to treatment is 10 years in bipolar disorder, consistent with onset at 15–19 years often followed by up to 10 years of diagnostic delay.

Why the other options are wrong

  • A. 1 year: 50% recover from acute manic episodes within 1 year.
  • B. 2 years: Rates of recurrence in bipolar disorder average 60% in 2 years.
  • D. 12 years: A prospective study of 431 patients with depression followed them for up to 12 years.
  • E. 20 weeks: The median time to recovery in depression is 20 weeks.

Key point: Bipolar disorder has a median of 10 years from first symptom to treatment.

References

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