SCTIMST Staff Nurse - 2015 (Set-A)
Psychiatric Nursing
Easy
Perception in the absence of external stimuli is termed as?
Appeared in: SCTIMST Staff Nurse - 2015 (Set-A)
Explanation
- A hallucination is a sensory perception experienced in the complete absence of an actual external stimulus.
- This phenomenon can occur in any sensory modality, including auditory (hearing voices), visual (seeing things), tactile (feeling sensations on the skin), olfactory (smelling odors), and gustatory (tasting things).
- Unlike an illusion, which is a distortion of a real stimulus, a hallucination is a perception created entirely by the mind.
Why Other Options Were Wrong
- Option A: A delusion is a disorder of thought content, not perception. It is a fixed, false belief that is firmly held despite evidence to the contrary.
- Option B: An illusion is a misperception or misinterpretation of a real external stimulus. There is a sensory input, but the brain processes it incorrectly.
- Option C: A phobia is a disorder of emotion or affect, specifically an intense and irrational fear of a particular object or situation. It is not a perceptual disturbance.
Related Visual
Clinical Relevance
- Nursing practice connection: This is primarily an exam-oriented knowledge point with limited direct bedside application, so retain Disorders of Perception in Psychiatry as background academic context rather than a clinical decision trigger.
- Accurate identification of perceptual disturbances is a fundamental nursing skill in mental health. Differentiating between hallucination, illusion, and delusion is critical for assessment and planning care.
- A key nursing priority when assessing a patient with hallucinations is to determine if they are command hallucinations (voices telling the patient to harm themselves or others). This is a direct safety risk that requires immediate intervention.
- What if? If the patient saw a coat on a rack and believed it was a person standing in the corner, the phenomenon would be an illusion, not a hallucination, because a real external stimulus (the coat) was misinterpreted.
How to Approach the Question
- First, identify the core concepts in the question stem: 'perception' and 'absence of external stimuli'.
- The key differentiator here is 'absence of stimuli'. This means a sensory experience is happening with nothing in the environment to cause it.
- Review the definitions of the options. A delusion is a belief. A phobia is a fear. An illusion is a misinterpretation of a present stimulus.
- A hallucination is the only term that describes a perception occurring without a stimulus.
- Therefore, match the definition from the stem to the correct term among the options.
Concept Tested & Keywords
- Concept Tested: Disorders of Perception in Psychiatry
- Stem keywords: Perception, absence of external stimuli
- Lead-in keywords: termed as
- Negative lead-in flag: false
Question ID
QzblzFTS8--Ph-P6jNvb-Z
Reference Book
E6 Robert Boland, Marcia L. Verduin - Kaplan and Sadock's Comprehensive Text of Psychiatry-Wolters Kluwer Health (2024) (pp 1-16525 of 16525) pp. 3815-3817, 3250-3252
E6 Guide to Mental Health & PSYCHIATRIC NURSING R Sreevani— Part 1 (pp 26-289 of 579) p. 51-53
Practise the full SCTIMST Staff Nurse - 2015 (Set-A)
Attempt every question from this paper in a timed mock, then review the full solution for each one.
More Psychotic Disorders Questions
- False sensory perception in the absence of real external stimuli is called?
- Perception of any object in the absence of actual stimulus is termed as?
- Perception without stimuli is?
- False Perception in the absence of actual stimulus is termed as?
- A client suffering from paranoid and auditory hallucination and nurse check the last 14 days history and found that patient not wear cloth and not ha…
- Auditory hallucinations are disorders of?
- A psychotic patient is shouting loudly and aggressively in the ward. Which type of speech characteristic is shown by him?
More SCTIMST Staff Nurse - 2015 (Set-A) Questions
- The nurse who observes projectile vomiting in a newborn suspects?
- A person with Diabetes mellitus is asking you the calories obtained from one teaspoon of sugar. Your answer would be?
- Which of the following food items are rich sources of vitamin A?
- The urinary output of a client for 24 hours was 350 ml. The nurse has documented the observation as?
- Which one of the following terms indicates an increase in the size of cells without an increase in the number of cells?
- When the client can breathe only in an upright position, it is termed as?
- A client with hypoventilation is prone to develop?
- A client after pneumonectomy will be positioned on?
- A client who is sent home with an ileostomy requires dietary supplementation with?
- The hierarchy of human needs, where nurses prioritize basic physiological needs, is identified by?