Essay Sample on Adolescents: Mental Health Issues and Self-Harm Risk

Introduction

Adolescents suffer from various mental health problems such as depression, stress, anger, frustration, irritability, anxiety, and other issues. Most adolescents who experience these problems are undetected and untreated. The problem with mental health problems is that they increase the chances for self-harm. Adolescents are susceptible to mental health issues because of the series of physical, emotional, and social changes that they experience. These mental health issues can affect the overall growth and development of adolescence to adulthood. Stress among adolescents is high among this group of people due to peer pressure, exploration of their sexual identity, desire for freedom, access to technology, and the influence of social media. The most appropriate intervention is community-based programs which include music, dancing, singing, drama, and visual arts which are undertaken in the community setting. The activities have a significant impact on the relaxation of mental health symptoms. Parent training, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), and social skills training are useful interventions of mental health issues. The community-based, family-based, hospital-based, and digital platform intervention programs will be applied to manage mental health issues among adolescents in a mental health setting (Das et al., 2016). Hospital-based programs will be offered to in-patients in acute mental illness within the mental asylums. These interventions focus on early treatment, prevention, and wellbeing. Community-based interventions serve as alternatives to acute in-patient care, as they are implemented within the mental health unit. Digital platforms interventions are online programs that will help to improve the mental health of acute-patients within psychiatric hospitals. Family-based interventions will also be used since they are useful in addressing the mental health issues of adolescents as they use strategies that reduce mental health issues.

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The goal of community-based interventions is to reduce suicide rates, modify behavior, and boost the confidence and self-esteem of adolescents. The interventions also seek to improve antisocial behavior and physical activities among adolescents with anxiety and depression. What the intervention seeks to accomplish is to help adolescents prevent mental health issues and also health from these problems to ensure they live healthy lives and therefore prevent suicide rates. The outcomes of the intervention plan will establish a framework that can be used to improve quality, safety, and experience of care since it can identify the most effective methods that help addressing mental health issues of adolescents. Community-based interventions can be used in various areas to address mental health issues among adolescents, and they can help to improve quality, safety, and experience of care among adolescents Lubans, D., Richards, J., Hillman, C., (Faulkner, Beauchamp, Nilsson & Biddle, 2016).

The outcomes of the intervention will be measured and evaluated to determine whether the goals were accomplished. It will be crucial to work with necessary stakeholders who include adolescents with mental issues, families, psychiatrists to determine the progress of the patients and whether the cases of suicide or admission of patients with mental health issues increased or reduced after an intervention. The data required to fully evaluate the outcomes include the number of suicide reported to determine whether they have increased or reduced, the number of adolescents visits to psychiatrists due to mental health issues and carrying out interviews with adolescents to determine their mental states and whether they still suffer from the issues.

The data will be collected using various methods, including interviews with families and adolescents to determine their behavioral issues and mental health status. Further, it will be crucial to work with a psychiatrist to determine the level of in-patient rates. Observation will also be used to collect information about the behaviors of adolescents to determine whether they have any mental health issues that could be influencing their actions. Screening of adolescents to determine whether they have an ICD-10 psychiatric diagnosis can also help in determining the percentage of people with mental health issues (Lubans et al., 2016). There will also be strengths and difficulties questionnaire as well as development and wellbeing assessment to determine whether the adolescents have any mental health issues. The questions will be self-reported. Different variables, such as chronic illness, relationship with parents, sociodemographic, and others, will be extracted and analyzed. Depression will be measured by the feeling of hopelessness, whereas anxiety will be measured by feeling worried. Data will be collected from the hospital records. Recording devices will be vital in recording interviews. The data will be analyzed and evaluated based on the methods used in data collection. Computers will be used to analyze the data to determine the patterns and clues about the data collected. Data analysis will be done using various methods such as SRATA (Hom, Stanley & Joiner Jr, 2015).

The evaluation plan will indicate whether the intervention plan decreased the level of depression, anxiety, and other negative mental states of adolescents. It will also show if there was any change that was realized after the intervention.

Discussion

Advocacy

Nurses can help to lead change in professional practice and interprofessional teams by coming up with proposals on how things can be done differently and therefore, ensuring that policies are created to ensure that the change is realized. They can also educate the public so that they can support change and the recommended policies. Nurses can also be change agents in interprofessional teams by ensuring that they propose strategies and methods that can help people come up with ideas that help motivate and encourage teams to stick together for the accomplishment of a greater goal.

Nurses can help drive improvements in the quality and experience of care in professional practice an interprofessional teams by ensuring that communicating well with patients and team members, ensuring that medical errors are reduced, building relationships and trust, being innovative collaborating effectively which can help increase results consistently.

The intervention plan to help adolescents deal with mental health issues will help the nursing profession and role in that it will reduce the number of adolescents seeking treatment associated with mental health issues. It will also simplify the work of nurses because they will have an intervention plan to recommend to patients who have mental health issues. Nurses will have the role of supporting the intervention plan to assist patients in getting better.

The intervention plan ensures that interprofessional collaboration is encouraged to get the different views of different professionals to improve outcomes. The intervention plan will help parents, psychiatrist and the community to have fewer cases of adolescents with mental health issues and therefore it will reduce the cost of healthcare and ensure that people live in harmony in the community.

Future Steps

The intervention could be improved to include evidence from past studies to ensure that the intervention becomes comprehensive so that it can handle mental health issues of adolescents all over the world so that it has a huge impact. Further, emerging technologies such as the internet and other digital tools can be used to collect data, perform analysis, and assessments to ensure high-quality evidence is obtained. Further, these technologies can be used to help adolescents with mental health issues. Mobile apps can be used to create programs that help young people overcome their problems. Technology can also be used to maintain the privacy and confidentiality of patient information.

Leading Change and Improvement

The project has motivated me to lead a change in personal practice and future leadership positions. I have realized that adolescents and other groups of people with certain health issues can be helped by devising various interventions to ensure that they live healthy lives. The project has enabled me to discover my strengths and weaknesses which can be utilized in becoming better in future leadership positions and in leading change. The complete intervention, implementation, and evaluation plans can be transferred into my practice to become better in identifying health issues that require attention so that they can be addressed for the betterment of the population. I have learned that it is crucial to understand the problems that exist in society to formulate intervention that drives quality improvement.

References

Das, J. K., Salam, R. A., Lassi, Z. S., Khan, M. N., Mahmood, W., Patel, V., &Bhutta, Z. A. (2016). Interventions for adolescent mental health: an overview of systematic reviews. Journal of Adolescent Health, 59(4), S49-S60.doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2016.06.020

Hom, M. A., Stanley, I. H., & Joiner Jr, T. E. (2015). Evaluating factors and interventions that influence help-seeking and mental health service utilization among suicidal individuals: A review of the literature. Clinical psychology review, 40, 28-39.https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2015.05.006

Lubans, D., Richards, J., Hillman, C., Faulkner, G., Beauchamp, M., Nilsson, M., ... & Biddle, S. (2016). Physical activity for cognitive and mental health in youth: a systematic review of mechanisms. Pediatrics, 138(3), e20161642.