The three important components of this interview are patient history, health examination and clinical judgment. Patient history includes gathering information about previous medical conditions and medications.

The psychiatric review of symptoms seeks to reveal issues that the patient may have not brought up when describing the history of his or her present illness. As in the rest of medicine, patients likely do not share an identical view with their physician of what constitutes an illness.

The primary aims of a psychiatric interview are to describe a patient's complaints, appearance, experience(s), or existence; collect objective clinical data in an actionable psychopathologic layout for shared diagnostic classification; and guide treatment and clinical decisions.