Effects of Depression in Adolescents Today

Effects of Depression in Adolescents Today
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Depression
Depression is the most common mental illness globally, and the symptoms usually present during childhood to adolescence. This affects around eight to 20% of adolescents below 18 years old globally. Remarkably, 30.6% of college students worldwide suffer from this disorder (Chi et al., 2018). This age group is at high risk because of the life-changing events they encounter during this period, such as leaving home and transferring to an area far from their support group and drastic changes in their social environment (Bodicherla et al., 2021).
External Stressors
The World Health Organization (2020) states that stressors that can negatively affect adolescents include a yearning for autonomy over their lives, probing of individual sexual identities, pressure to follow the trend and the actions of their peers, and high frequency of technology utilization. In addition, it can be exacerbated by the media, which portrays gender norms that the individuals must follow in the society, thereby increasing the disparity between the adolescent’s imagined and lived relation. Other factors include the quality of relationships at home and with peers, violence, and socioeconomic problems. Some examples of problems at home include physical, emotional, and sexual violence, which are all harmful in their growth and development as persons.
Outline of Assessment Strategies
The assessment of adolescent depression shall be a combination of spontaneous patient self-reporting and interviews of the parents or caregivers regarding the patients’ situation. These are effective if the patient and caregiver are aware of their condition and have the initiative to get checked (Beck et al., 2021).
In this case, when there is suspicion of a major depressive disorder, the health provider shall proceed with the clinical inquiry, using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9). This assessment tool can be administered easily in the primary care setting in patients twelve years and above. It has a sensitivity of 96% and a specificity of 82% (Pickens et al., n.d.).
Additional Assessment Questions
In a study by Haugen et al. (2016), three central questions were used to assess the possibility of depression in adolescents. These consist of two crucial and one help questions, which are as follows: 1) In the past 30 days, have you felt downhearted, depressed, or disheartened?; 2) In the past 30 days, where you frequently concerned with having minimal attention or pleasure in doing things?; 3) Do you experience anything which you would want to seek help with?.
Ethical Parameters
All health providers shall respect the adolescent’s privacy and confidentiality. Details gathered from the interview shall not be shared with the parents unless the situation concerns the patient’s and caregi...