In many settings, it has become commonplace for the care of psychiatric patients to draw on the expertise of multidisciplinary teams. In the evaluation phase of care, other members of the clinical team (e.g., nurses, psychologists, occupational therapists, social workers, case managers, peer counselors, chaplains) may gather data or perform discipline-specific assessments. The psychiatrist responsible for the patient's care reviews and integrates these assessments into the psychiatric evaluation of the patient and works with other members of the multidisciplinary team in developing and implementing a plan of care.

The opportunity to improve systematic observations of patients' behavior by staff is an advantage of controlled settings such as hospitals, partial hospital settings, residential treatment facilities, and other institutions. Several types of observations may be gathered, according to the patient's specific situation:

• General observations. These are relevant to all patients in all settings and include notes on patients' behavior, statements and expressed concerns, cooperativeness with or resistance to staff, sleep/wake patterns, and self-care.
• Diagnosis-specific observations. These are observations relevant to confirming a diagnosis or assessing the severity, complications, or subtype of a disorder. Examples include recording signs of withdrawal in an alcohol-dependent patient and observations during meals for patients with eating disorders.
• Patient-specific observations. These are observations aimed at assessing a clinical hypothesis. An example is observation of behavior following a family meeting for a patient in whom family conflicts are suspected of having contributed to a psychotic relapse.
• Observations of response to treatment interventions. Examples include systematic recording of a target behavior in a trial of behavior therapy, observations of the effects of newly prescribed medications, and nurse-completed rating scales to measure changes after behavioral or psychotherapeutic interventions.