Psychiatry — in the LEK question base
Diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders, psychopharmacology, involuntary measures and the Polish Mental Health Act.
- Questions in base
- 244
- Share of base
- 8.0%
- Roughly on the paper
- ~11
The "on the paper" figure assumes the 140 questions drawn from the base are distributed in proportion to its composition. CEM does not publish per-field quotas, so treat it as an order of magnitude rather than a promise.
Required reading — psychiatry
The list CEM publishes for this field. Questions are written from these titles, so where a lecture and a listed textbook disagree, the textbook decides.
They appear here in Polish, exactly as CEM lists them — these are the specific editions that count, and most have no English translation. That is not an oversight on our part; it is the central practical problem of sitting this exam in English.
- 01 Piotr Gałecki, Agnieszka Szulc — Psychiatria, Edra Urban & Partner, 2018
- 02 P. Gałecki, K. Bobińska, K. Eichstaedt — Ustawa o ochronie zdrowia psychicznego. Komentarz, wyd. II, Wolters Kluwer, 2016
Source: the CEM reading list . As at August 2026 — check before your session in case CEM has revised it.
Sample questions from the base
Ten items from CEM's public listing for this field, in the official English wording used on the exam paper. The correct answer is highlighted. Detailed explanations live in our Polish application (source of preparation).
Bulimia is the least commonly accompanied by:
- A major depressive disorder.
- B anankastic personality disorder. ✓
- C borderline personality disorder.
- D addictions.
- E anxiety disorders.
The depressive episode in the course of the bipolar disorder is characterized, more frequently than the one in the course of recurrent depressive disorder, by:
- A hypersomnia.
- B first episode occurring at young age.
- C presence of symptoms of psychosis.
- D resistance to the treatment with antidepressant medications.
- E all the above. ✓
Which of the following medications is not used for premature ejaculation treatment?
- A clomipramine.
- B sertraline.
- C fluoxetine.
- D dapoxetine.
- E all the above are used. ✓
Indicate the true statement concerning dementia:
- A memantine is registered for the treatment of mild and moderate dementia in Alzheimer disease.
- B because of the hypersensitivity to cholinesterase inhibitors it is recommended to use memantine in dementia with Lewy bodies.
- C neurological symptoms are typical of frontotemporal dementia, as opposed to Alzheimer disease. ✓
- D in dementia with Lewy bodies the longest timespan between the onset of parkinsonism and the onset of dementia symptoms is 6 months.
- E haloperidol is the first-line medication for the treatment of dementia with Lewy bodies and visual hallucinations.
Which of the following types of dementia is characterized by the shortest life expectancy?
- A dementia in Alzheimer's disease.
- B vascular dementia.
- C dementia with Lewy bodies.
- D frontotemporal dementia. ✓
- E dementia in Parkinson's disease.
The time criterion for diagnosis of insomnia is the persistence of symptoms above:
- A one week.
- B two weeks.
- C one month. ✓
- D six months.
- E a year.
A 23-year-old male reports that he has been hearing the "voice in his head, which comments what the man is doing and tells him to commit suicide". Which syndrome is this symptom the most characteristic of?
- A depressive.
- B paranoid. ✓
- C paranoic.
- D alcohol dependence.
- E catatonic.
The main symptoms of atypical depression include:
- A hypersomnia, loss of appetite.
- B mood reactivity, increased appetite. ✓
- C circadian mood fluctuations, body weight loss.
- D increased appetite, psychomotor unease.
- E evening mood worsening, shortened sleep.
An emergency medical ambulance has been called for a 71-year-old patient who passed out. On examination: heart rate 85/min., blood pressure 100/60 mmHg, the ECG - normal, sodium: 130 mmol/L, potassium: 3 mmol/L, height 165 cm, weight 65 kg. Abnormal allopsychic orientation, normal autopsychic orientation, the patient has auditory hallucinations and is susceptible to suggestion. The emergency team should:
- A transport the patient to the psychiatric ward.
- B transport the patient to the ward for internal diseases.
- C transport the patient to the emergency room. ✓
- D left the patient at home and recommend a visit to the family doctor.
- E left the patient at home and recommend a visit to the outpatient psychiatric clinic.
Indicate the proper definition of personality:
- A complex of relatively stable features, characteristics of human which give relative cohesion to his/her behaviour. ✓
- B assigning to yourself or to other people exaggerated negative characteristics or features.
- C complex of genes which determine the behaviour and characteristics of man.
- D ability to think abstractly.
- E ability to think critically about adults as well as oneself.
Full listing for this field contains 244 questions — these ten are a preview. Detailed rationales, spaced-repetition scheduling and citations are in the Polish app (English coverage is in progress).
How to get through this field
244 questions is a finite, countable set — at twenty a day you are through it in 13 days. The difficulty is not the volume. It is that the CEM listing gives you the questions and nothing else: no answer key, no explanation and no indication which of the books above the answer came from.
In our bank every question in this field carries an explanation and a citation to its source. Instead of memorising a letter you see why the other four options are wrong — and that is the part which transfers to the 60 unpublished questions you cannot prepare for in advance. The English edition is in progress; these pages come first.