In a 500-word teen suicide contemporary issue essay paper, discuss how teen suicide is a contemporary issue in todays teens. Include the following in your submission:
Describe the contemporary issue and explain what external stressors are associated with this issue.
1.Outline assessment strategies to screen for this issue and external stressors during an assessment for an adolescent patient. Describe what additional assessment questions you would need to ask and define the ethical parameters regarding what you can and cannot share with the parent or guardian. Teen suicide contemporary issue essay.
2.Discuss support options for adolescents encountering external stressors. Include specific support options for the contemporary issue you presented.
3.Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.
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Assessing Suicide Ideation and External Stressors in Today’s Teens and Exploring the Available Support Options
Introduction
Suicide among teens is one of the contemporary mental health issues that are facing society today. In fact, according to Jameson et al. (2018) it is (together with homicide and accidents) one of the “leading causes of age-specific mortality” in teens 15 to 19 years old (p. 26) Teen suicide contemporary issue essay. There is a multiplicity of factors that drive teens to want to commit suicide. These are the external stressors operating within the teens’ socio-economic environment (Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Centre, 2019). This essay briefly looks at how to assess for this issue, the environmental stress factors causing it, and support measures that are available.
Assessment Strategies and External Stressors for Teen Suicide
Suicidal ideation is not something that the clinician can see and recognize just by looking at a teenager. Therefore, in order to discover these teenagers with these suicidal ideas some sort of screening has to be in place. Currently, there are several screening tools available to the psychiatric-mental health nurse practitioner (PMHNP) for this task. Some of the most prominent and commonly used of these tools are the Suicidal Ideation Questionnaire, Suicide Behaviors Questionnaire, Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale, and the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) amongst others (Conn et al., 2017). These screening tools are normally comprehensive enough to ascertain whether the patient is at significant risk of suicide or not. However, there are also other additional supplemental questions that the PMHNP can ask to solidify the findings. These aim at finding out suicidal tendencies – both current and past. Some of these questions are like: “Have you attempted to end your life before? Did you halt the attempt yourself or someone stopped you? Do you currently have any plan for committing suicide? Teen suicide contemporary issue essay. Have you ever attempted to utilise the method you intend to use now before? What do you think will be the result of your actions?” and so on (Conn et al., 2017). After the findings of these screening measures are obtained, there are some ethical parameters that govern disclosure of the information to the parents as these are usually mostly minors. Some of these bioethical principles are beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice (Encyclopedia.com, 2016). Beneficence dictates that whatever we disclose to the teen’s parents must bring only good, while nonmaleficence says that the disclosure should not bring the teen any ‘harm’ (like being denied some favors by the parent). If the disclosure will help in preventing the teen from committing suicide (harm), it will also fall under nonmaleficence. Lastly, the principle of justice requires that the teen be treated fairly and be assisted to find inner peace.
Some of the external stress factors that may lead the teen to feel like committing suicide are the day-to-day socio-economic situations and tests in life. These include peer push to conform, pressure by parents to do well in school, dysfunction in the family like domestic violence or divorce, fiscal challenges at home, sexual abuse or molestation (like bullying) amongst others (Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Centre, 2019). Teen suicide contemporary issue essay.
Support Alternatives Available for Teen Suicidal Ideation and Planning
There are several support avenues available for teens that suffer from suicidal ideation and planning. These include hotlines that one can call if they suspect a teen of being suicidal, or are suicidal themselves. A counsellor is normally on the other end to offer support. Others are group psychotherapy with teens with a similar problem. In group psychotherapy, the therapeutic factor of universality (knowing that they are not alone with the problem) is important. Then there are also resources for educating the family on how to cope (Conn et al., 2017). However, specific measures for teen suicide include existential counselling and Dialectical Behavior Training or DBT (Corey, 2017).
References
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Centre (2019). Common pressures that can cause stress in teens. Retrieved 4 September 2019 from https://www.cincinnatichildrens.org/service/s/surviving-teens/stressors
Conn, B.M., Sherer, S. & Yohan, T. (2017). Suicide risk and assessment among adolescents and young adults. Retrieved 4 September 2019 from Teen suicide contemporary issue essay
Corey, G. (2017). Theory and practice of counselling and psychotherapy, 10th ed. Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
Encyclopedia.com (2016). Principlism. Retrieved from https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/principlism
Jameson, J.L., Fauci, A.S., Kasper, D.L., Hauser, S.L., Longo, D.L., & Loscalzo, J. (Eds) (2018). Harrison’s principles of internal medicine, 20th ed. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Education. Teen suicide contemporary issue essay