Contemporary Teenage Issues

Running head: CONTEMPORARY TEENAGE ISSUES
CONTEMPORARY TEENAGE ISSUES
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1CONTEMPORARY TEENAGE ISSUES
Introduction
Adolescence is found to be a difficult phase for teenagers and their family members. During
this development stage, the person goes through various changes such as hormonal, mental
and physical changes (Salk et al., 2016). These changes sometimes make it difficult to
understand and diagnose depression that a teenage is going through. Depression in teenage
and adult are quite similar but teenagers are not able to handle their depression like the adults
and they end up expressing themselves in different means such as harming themselves by
burning or cutting and sometimes show suicidal tendencies (Brunner et al., 2014).
This assignment will focus on the teenage depression issues, the reason behind it and nursing
assistance required solving the problem.
Discussion
The contemporary issue and external stressor associated
There are several issues that a teenager faces between the age of 13 and 19 years as it is the
most difficult growing stage of life. At this stage they go through a lot of internal and external
problems, such as depression, drug and alcohol addiction, cyber addiction, bullying, peer
pressure and academic competition. These issues arise due to many reasons, that can be
parental force, educational pressure, misunderstanding, lack of guidance. One of the major
issues are depression. There are various reasons why a teenager goes into depression. The
reason can be development of feelings of insignificance and inadequacy within the person. It
has also been observed that school performances, personal life, social standing can also have
their role in causing depression in a teenage.

2CONTEMPORARY TEENAGE ISSUES
Symptoms of teenage depression
Every teenage experience stress in some amount and some stress can be healthy. Many
teenagers are found struggling with significant amount of stress that effects their education,
relationships and other areas. These can lead a teenage towards depression. Depression in a
teenage can be identified by focusing on:
Behavioural changes
The changes can be in eating, sleeping behaviour and daily activities. The person starts being
restless, tired and angry most of the time.
Emotional changes
Emotional changes include trouble in thinking, remembering things and concentrating, the
person starts feeling sad, irritated and losses interest in activities. One of the major emotional
change is that the teenager gets suicidal thoughts.
Physical changes
Teenage with depression issues start getting sick frequently and suffers loss in physic.
Self-harming tendencies are the warning signs of severe depression.
Strategies to screen
The diagnosis of depression in adolescents is a very difficult task. It is important to provide
teenagers with a comprehensive assessment by a mental health expert. It can be performed
using MMSE or MSE methodologies which are used to screen mental health of a patient. The
evaluation session must embrace a full progress history of the person suffering. A better
diagnostic session includes the patient’s family history, school presentation and behaviour.
They may also perform physical examination to figure out whether the person is suffering
from depression or not.