A Quality Improvement Project That Implements Universal Adolescent Depression Screening Essay

The retrospective review conducted by Sun, Abraham, Slack, and Skrepnek (2014) was intended to calculate the national estimates of depression-related emergency department (ED) visits among adolescents that were 17 years or younger in the United States. Depression in adolescents are commonly either not diagnosed, under diagnosed, or unscreened during regular health care office checkups, therefore the ED ends up being their primary care resource in times of need. If depression is left untreated, it may damage the development of a young person’s emotional, cognitive, and social skills placing them at a higher risk for committing self-harm and even suicide (Sun et al., 2014). For the research design, the authors utilized a “retrospective cross-sectional

In “Should All Teens Be Screened for Depression?”, Dr. Chung and Dr. Frances give their opinions on early diagnoses on teenagers, be them supporting the concern, or disagreeing. Chung explains how screening for depression at an earlier time is crucial for effective treatment. Chung also describes the statistics of how 1 in 12 teenagers between ages 12 to 17 are affected with the mental illness, but only less than half are properly diagnosed. He justifies that it is up to clinicians to hold these critical conversations about this mental ailment. However, Allen Frances argues that a diagnosis for depression is too risky. Frances contends that misdiagnoses are all too common, and happen way too often. He clearly indicates

The article puts an emphasis that rooting out depression in adolescence needs to be more proactive in primary healthcare settings. This is done by not only giving physicians the option to diagnose mental illnesses, but by already instilling it in common check-ups (Healy, 2016). Moreover, Healy (2016) points out that many primary healthcare physicians do not have the proper training to screen and treat their patients for depressive symptoms and other mental disorders. Research shows that when physicians are trained and provided with proper screening processes to diagnose and treat depressive symptoms, there were significant increases in the diagnosis of adolescent depression rates (Fallucco, Bejarano & Kozikowski, 2015). This research supports Healy’s notion that the practice of routinely screening adolescents for symptoms in primary healthcare settings are effective in identifying depression in

In the United States, suicide is the third leading cause of death for 10 to 14-year-olds (CDC, 2015) and for 15 to 19-year-olds (Friedman, 2008). In 2013, 17.0% of students grades 9 to 12 in the United States seriously thought about committing suicide, 13.6% made a suicide plan, 8.0% attempted suicide, and 2.7% attempted suicide in which required medical attention (CDC, 2015). These alarming statistics show that there is something wrong with the way mental illness is handled in today’s society. Also, approximately 21% of all teenagers have a treatable mental illness (Friedman, 2008), although 60% do not receive the help that they need (Horowitz, Ballard, & Pao, 2009).

The topic of this study is to determine if evidence based guidelines for youth with depression or mental health concerns needs to be implemented or changed. This study is important because it can show where the health care providers need to improve and where the guidelines are outdated and need to be changed. The hypothesis being tested is that the guidelines are outdated and need to be replaced, and the guidelines need to be implemented and enforced.

Regionally, in the state of Virginia, for children ages 10 to 14, depression is the leading cause of hospitalization and the second leading cause of hospitalization for adolescents ages 15 to 19 (Virginia Cooperative Extension, 2009). Therefore, it is evident that the rate of depression is high in the state of Virginia and potentially even the lack of identification and management with high hospitalization rates due to depression. At the author’s clinic site, there are currently no regulatory depression screening tests used for all adolescent patients. Although it is routine to perform a version of the “HEEADDSS” assessment, a confidential psychosocial history, with adolescent patients, this assessment is does not incorporate either of the two depression screening tools recommended by the USPSTF. This assessment typically only includes two to five questions regarding depression or suicidality, and has not shown to be effective in screening for Major Depressive Disorder. A change in practice is needed at the local, regional, and national level. With the use of the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) for Adolescents for screening for depression in all adolescent patients yearly, healthcare providers will have a better peace of mind in caring for their adolescent patients and help ensure they are not overlooking any

Depression is a disease that afflicts the human psyche in such a way that the afflicted tend to act and react abnormally toward others and themselves. Adolescent depression is greatly under diagnosed, and leads to serious difficulties in school, and personal adjustment. The reason why depression is often overlooked in children is because children are not always able to express how they feel. Therefore, teachers should be trained in dealing with depressed youths, and to advise the parents of the child to seek professional treatment. School is the place where children spend most of their waking hours learning, socializing, and growing.

Mental illnesses are very common in the United States, with one in five of adolescents having a diagnosed mental illness and in the last year less than half of these adolescents have received proper treatment. The most common mental disorders, anxiety and depression, can disrupt daily life and result in suicide, which is the third most frequent cause of death in teenagers (“The Office of Adolescent Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services”). Ten percent of adolescents did not have health insurance in 2013 and those who did, had a very limited amount of mental health care services provided to them (“The Office of Adolescent Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services”). It has been proved that it is even less likely that adolescents who are poor, homeless, gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender will receive the care that is necessary for their health and even life (“The Office of Adolescent Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services”). Mental disorders are not only an

Only in the past two decades has depression in adolescents been taken seriously. Depression is an illness that involves the body, mood and thoughts. It affects the way a person eats and sleeps, the way one feels about oneself, and the way one thinks about things. Therefore it comes to no surprise to discover that adolescent depression is strongly linked to teen suicide. Adolescent suicide is now responsible for more deaths in youths aged 15 to 19 than cardiovascular disease or cancer (Blackman, 1995). Despite this alarming increased suicide rate, depression in this age group is greatly under diagnosed and can lead to serious difficulties in

Many have stated that their children have done well or improved on many things after receiving a screening. Kids and adolescents spend a significant amount of their time in school, yet providing mental health screenings and care is not an overarching requirement for many schools. “We need to think about how to embed mental health services so they become part of the culture in schools,” says study author Dr. Mina Faze, a child psychiatrist at the University of Oxford (Sifferlin, 2014). To spot physical and mental issues schools should have counsellors at the school to solve a student’s problem right away, after completed the screening. Considering the fact that the screening takes five minutes talking to a counselor should take more than five minutes and the counselor should alert the parent of any serious symptoms that can lead to Major depression. Major depression screening for teens. This is a questionnaire about depression and its warning signs. Questioned are Kids 12 through 18. Major depression is linked with suicide Each year roughly one in 10 teens ages 15 to 19 attempt suicide at least once, with more than 600,000 injuring themselves badly after their attempts to require medical attention, substance abuse, and many other problems. "There are people who say, 'Suicide is rare, so why devote such energy to it?' And they're right," Shaffer comments. "The rationale for going ahead is that the disorders predisposing to suicide are

Previous semester the concentrated population for my research was the adolescent age group ranging from 12- 16 years old. The research investigated self- harm in the age group within the last ten years in America. The exploration question was stated as, “What interventions have the best effects on reducing self-harm/suicide rates in adolescents that have a history of depression symptoms in the last 10 years in America?” It’s important to address this concern because self-harm is serious and can lead to suicide. Overtime this type of behavior has expanded and is continuing to cultivate among adolescents.

Before the age of eighteen nearly a fourth of all young persons will deal with mental illness (Shirk and Jungbluth 217). Only around a third of these children will receive professional treatment (United States Public Health Service qtd. in Shirk and Jungbluth 222). Because of the risk of suicide in mentally ill young people, it is crucial that mental health services are readily available to our youth in school settings. Therefore, schools should administer mandatory mental health screenings because mental illness often affects academic performance, and the majority of young persons that commit suicide have a treatable illness.

Adolescent suicide is an increasing mental health concern. Adolescents are considered a high-risk group in view of the fact that suicide is the third leading cause of death among the ages ten to fourteen and the second leading cause of death among ages fifteen to thirty-five (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2013). Alarming statistics such as these have bought enough attention to add “Adolescent Health” as a new topic in Healthy People 2020

Today’s teenagers are faced with the ever changing world around them and the biological changes of their bodies. Many teens are also faced with depression. Approximately half of teenagers with untreated depression may attempt suicide, which remains the third leading cause of death in this age group. (Bostic). This depression affects their school, family lives, and robs them of their self image. Depression affects many teens and often goes by unnoticed and untreated.

People used to believe that children had no reason to be depressed it wasn’t till a few years ago: “No one thought that children could suffer from real depression; there wasn’t even an official diagnosis for childhood depression until 1980” (Fassler 4). But really who would have thought that such a thing could be possible. Sadly today we know that it’s a real disease and it affects more adolescents than we think: “ The National Institute of Mental Health estimates that as many as 2.5 percent of all American youngsters under the age of eighteen or over 1.5 million children and adolescents are seriously depressed” (Fassler 2).