The prevalence of depression among young people
Question:
Discuss about the Principles of strengths based nursing leadership.
Depression has become the most common mental health problem among young people and the rate of depression is found to be higher in adolescents aged 6-17 years. Considering the high prevalence of depression among adults, adolescent depression screening in primary care has become a necessity. The implementation of depression screening programs in health care setting is an effective step to address the problem of under-diagnosis and under-referrals leading. The presence of appropriate screening and diagnosis tools enhances the effectiveness of screening method (Fallucco et al., 2015). In addition, the role of nurse in working in partnership with affected children and families is also important to provide care and engage in health promotion. This report examines research literature to examine how strength based models of care can support nurses to work in partnership with children and how health education and improve health of adolescent with depression.
Strength based nursing (SBN) is a value driven care process which values the capacity, skills and knowledge and potential of patients and families (Mirkovic et al., 2016). Strength based care approach expands the horizons of nursing care and encourages nurses to adapt new set of values to solve patient problems. It emphasizes on client focused outcome such as patient satisfaction and morbidity rate and concerned with health, healing, quality of life and subjective well-being. The core principle of strength based practice includes having an absolute belief that every person possesses unique strengths and capabilities and this belief that creates hope and optimism (Moyle, Parker & Bramble, 2014). Hence, it can be said that SBN sees resilience as goal of care and this goal guides them to implement effective preventive strategies.
The strength based model of care can also enable nurse to work in partnership with children affected by depression. The concept of SBN is suitable for screening of adolescent with depression as focusing on unique strength of children instead of their deficits will enrich the value of screening process. By implementing the principles of SBN, the nurse or other team members can enhances the quality of screening process. It will promote inclusive screening by supporting screening staffs to address disparities and implement patient-centered care (Fallucco et al., 2015). The review of research literature has revealed several advantage of strength based model of care in supporting nurses to work in partnership with patients and their families. Xie, (2013) investigated about the role of strength based approach (SBA) for mental recovery. The study showed that SBA help health practitioners to acknowledge that every person possess unique strength and capacities to overcome any problem. In the context of mental health recovery, it is extremely important for patients to take a meaningful approach towards life despite mental problems. Hence, SBA provides new confidence to ailing person and their family members.
Children with depression are often exposed to multiple stressors in their life. Therefore, when nurses try to apply the SBA while interacting with adolescents with depression, they get the opportunity to inform children about their unique hopes, aspirations and interest. Such realization in children and family members can pave way for developing effective working and caring relationship with nurses. It helps to address the continuum of trauma exposures in their life (Kinniburgh et al., 2017). After identifying the strength, the nurse can engage them in activities that support them in their recovery from depression.
The need for depression screening programs in primary care
Gottlieb (2014) has shown that strength based approach supports the nurse in providing patient-centered and quality care. This is because the strength based approach emphasizes on looking at strength and resources of the consumer instead of looking at their deficits. Such approach is likely to empower people and give the support to patients and their families to recover from health issues like depression. When nurses try to uncover the inner and outer strength of adolescent with depression, then adequate partnership between children and families are developed. It also promotes empowerment, self-efficacy and hope in children and their families. The main support that nurses get by applying strength based model of care is that by knowing the patient’s capacity for health and healing, they can easily set goals for promoting healing and creating an environment to alleviate sufferings (Gottlieb, Gottlieb and Shamian, 2012). Hence, in the context of adolescent screening for depression, utilization of this approach can help nurses to guide children and families take the right step towards recovery from mental illness.
For nurses, establishing effective working relationship with children and families mean that engaging in therapeutic relationship with patients. The review of research literature has also showed that strength based model of care supports developing therapeutic relationship between health care staffs and patients and their family members, SBA enables health care staffs to shift from blaming tendency and identify how patients have overcome relapse of illness. The focus on identifying strength and weakness of families helps nurses to improve their self-management capabilities, promote skills for management of health and mobilize family resources for recovery (Gottlieb & Gottlieb, 2017). Hence, children and their family attract the center of attention in strength based model of care and communication with them supports nurses to build adequate therapeutic relationship with them. However, many nurse lack the clinical skill to effectively communicate with patient and recognize their unique strength that strengthens the healing process. Therefore, training in this area is essential and this can nurses to use their clinical skills to identify unique strength of children with depression. This can aid nurses in deciding the pathway needed for this children to recover from depression. The review of above evidence clearly indicates the impact of SBA on therapeutic relationship building and patient/family engagement in recovery from illness.
One of the major reasons for youth to experience depression is that they fail to cope with traumatic life circumstances and lack of knowledge to understand symptoms of depression increases the severity of the issue (van Nierop et al., 2015). In such case, health promotion and health education intervention is necessary for them to improve health, well-being and quality of life. Screening is an essential part of health promotion strategies as it makes staff aware about factors contributing to stress and depression in children. Screening is also helpful in distinguishing between subthreshold depression and clinical depression. By the use of appropriate screening tools, reliable diagnoses and treatment can be implemented instead of going forwards with unstructured clinical assessment (Young, Miller & Khan, 2010. The review of research literature on contribution of health promotion and health education in well-being of children and families with depression has revealed that presence of trauma and stress like adverse childhood experience, neglect, physical or emotional abuse and exposure to abuse increase the risk of depression in children. Health promotion by making clients aware of protective factors can reduce negative outcome (Bethell et al, 2014). Heath promotion in the area of mental health can support adolescents to develop resilience skills and cope with diversity. This is possible because teaching coping mechanism during health promotion can advance recovery in children. By means of health promotion intervention, children become aware about risk and protecting factors and ways to manage the problem. Hence, nurse can use the opportunity of health promotion to build social and emotional skills in children and facilitate their positive development (Min, Lee & Lee, 2013). Depression education program can also be implemented at school level to decrease mortality, morbidity and stigma associated with adolescent depression (Swartz et al., 2010)
The effectiveness of screening and diagnosis tools
Community based interventions like health education also contribute to health and well-being for children and families. The evidence by Fazel et al., (2014) focused on improving mental health education in school children. As mental illness affect’s children learning and development and impairs their academic performance, the study gave the recommendation that school based health education services are essential to promote health and well-being in adolescents. It provides children the opportunity to be aware of different mental problems and the services that needs to be consulted to resolve their issue. The evidence gave the insight that implementation of mental health promotion programmes can build social and emotional skills in children and promote positive behavior. The evidence also proved that implementation of such programs at school level increased academic scores of children. Hence, health promotion is found effective not only in improving health and well-being but also in promoting educational attainment in adolescents.
The research by Garmy, Berg and Clausson, (2015) also gives useful insight into the role of nurse in integrating health education and health promotions to address depressive symptoms in adolescents. The main aim of the study was to investigate about the impact of depression screening and health promotion on depressive symptoms of adolescents. Firstly, screening was done for school children to make a diagnosis of depression and then nurses conducted follow-up interview with participants to identify risk of depression. Hence, when nurses implement health promotion model for such children, they can effectively educated children regarding the presence of mental health problems. The evidence shows that nurses play a vital role in screening for depression as well as engaging in health promotion by means of mental health teaching. Hence, from the reviewing research literature, it is evident that strength based model of care and health promotion interventions is likely to improve health of children with depression and develop confidence in families too regarding the management of the disease.
Based on the review of evidence, the two recommendations for nursing practice to work with children and families with depression are as follows:
- From the discussion on nurses partnership with depression, it has been found that nurses lack the clinical expertise to effectively implement SBN for adolescent depression screening. Hence, it is recommended proper training programs are arranged for nurses so that they can easily transition to strength based approach instead of problem based approach. This can give confidence to adolescents and family members regarding coping with the symptoms of depression. They are encouraged to inculcate the values of strength based nursing to empower patients and improve their self-efficacy in the management of depression (Gottlieb & Gottlieb, 2017).
- After recognizing the benefits of health education programs in building resilience skills and improving stress management capacity of children, it is recommended that health education programs should also involved parents as parenting issue is also a major cause of adolescent depression (Bethell et al., 2014).
Conclusion:
The report gave an insight into the prevalence of depression in adolescent and the importance of depression screening to effectively work and engage in health promotion with affected children and their family members. As nurses play a vital role in screening and assessment of patient with depression, this report reviews research literature to find out how strength based model of care can support nurses in entering into working relationship with children and families. The review of findings provides enough evidence to prove the principles and values that leads to effective therapeutic engagement of nurses and patient in the path towards recovery. The potential of health promotion and health education in improving health of families is also understood. Tailor made approaches to health promotion and health education should be implemented by nurses so that mental health issues like depression can be prevented.
Reference:
Bethell, C. D., Newacheck, P., Hawes, E., & Halfon, N. (2014). Adverse childhood experiences: assessing the impact on health and school engagement and the mitigating role of resilience. Health Affairs, 33(12), 2106-2115.
Bethell, C. D., Newacheck, P., Hawes, E., & Halfon, N. (2014). Adverse childhood experiences: assessing the impact on health and school engagement and the mitigating role of resilience. Health Affairs, 33(12), 2106-2115.
Fallucco, E. M., Seago, R. D., Cuffe, S. P., Kraemer, D. F., & Wysocki, T. (2015). Primary care provider training in screening, assessment, and treatment of adolescent depression. Academic pediatrics, 15(3), 326-332.
Fallucco, E. M., Seago, R. D., Cuffe, S. P., Kraemer, D. F., & Wysocki, T. (2015). Primary care provider training in screening, assessment, and treatment of adolescent depression. Academic pediatrics, 15(3), 326-332.
Fazel, M., Hoagwood, K., Stephan, S., & Ford, T. (2014). Mental health interventions in schools in high-income countries. The Lancet Psychiatry, 1(5), 377-387.
Garmy, P., Berg, A., & Clausson, E. K. (2015). A qualitative study exploring adolescents’ experiences with a school-based mental health program. BMC public health, 15(1), 1074.
Gottlieb, L. N. (2014). CE: Strengths-based nursing. AJN The American Journal of Nursing, 114(8), 24-32.
Gottlieb, L. N., & Gottlieb, B. (2017). Strengths-Based Nursing: A Process for Implementing a Philosophy Into Practice. Journal of family nursing, 23(3), 319-340.
Gottlieb, L.N., Gottlieb, B. and Shamian, J., 2012. Principles of strengths-based nursing leadership for strengths-based nursing care: A new paradigm for nursing and healthcare for the 21st century. Nursing Leadership, 25(2), pp.38-50.
Kinniburgh, K. J., Blaustein, M., Spinazzola, J., & Van der Kolk, B. A. (2017). Attachment, Self-Regulation, and Competency: A comprehensive intervention framework for children with complex trauma. Psychiatric Annals, 35(5), 424-430.
Min, J. A., Lee, C. U., & Lee, C. (2013). Mental health promotion and illness prevention: a challenge for psychiatrists. Psychiatry investigation, 10(4), 307-316.
Mirkovic, J., Kristjansdottir, O.B., Stenberg, U., Krogseth, T., Stange, K.C. and Ruland, C.M., 2016. Patient insights Into the design of technology to support a strengths-based approach to health care. JMIR research protocols, 5(3).
Moyle, W., Parker, D., & Bramble, M. (2014). Care of older adults: A strengths-based approach. Cambridge University Press.
Oza, M. (2017). Strengths based approach in mental illness-need for a measurement scale. Indian Journal of Health and Wellbeing, 8(5), 376.
Swartz, K. L., Kastelic, E. A., Hess, S. G., Cox, T. S., Gonzales, L. C., Mink, S. P., & Raymond DePaulo Jr, J. (2010). The effectiveness of a school-based adolescent depression education program. Health Education & Behavior, 37(1), 11-22.
van Nierop, M., Viechtbauer, W., Gunther, N., Van Zelst, C., De Graaf, R., Ten Have, M., … & OUtcome of Psychosis (GROUP) investigators. (2015). Childhood trauma is associated with a specific admixture of affective, anxiety, and psychosis symptoms cutting across traditional diagnostic boundaries. Psychological medicine, 45(6), 1277-1288.
Xie, H. (2013). Strengths-based approach for mental health recovery. Iranian journal of psychiatry and behavioral sciences, 7(2), 5.
Young, J. F., Miller, M. R., & Khan, N. (2010). Screening and managing depression in adolescents. Adolescent health, medicine and therapeutics, 1, 87
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
