What does "oddly related" mean in a mental status exam? Mental Status Exams done by psychiatrists often include a description of the &quot;relatedness&quot; of a patient. Sometimes, patients are described as &quot;oddly related.&quot; What is &quot;relatedness&quot; and what qualifies as &quot;oddly related&quot;?
A google search for &quot;oddly related psychiatry&quot; shows a similar question on reddit and allnurses without a proper answer unfortunately.
Chris' answer is very thorough and describes the theory of relatedness. However, in practice when psychiatrists use the term 'related' on the behavior section of the mental status exam, they are referring to the way a patient is relating to the physician or other provider in that conversation.
In this framework, a 'normally related' person would be having a conversation the way one would expect given cultural context. An 'oddly related' person would not. The term is extremely broad however and so needs specifics for clarification. For example, a person identified as oddly-related might be alternating between being engaged and totally disengaged from a conversation without obvious pattern. However any number of other 'oddities' in their engagement with the physician could also be classified this way.
It is a relatively small component of the behavior section of mental status exam and will ideally be clarified where necessary.