Analyzing Mental Health Nursing Needs of School Going Teenagers

Running head: MENTAL HEALTH NURSING
Mental Health Nursing
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MENTAL HEALTH NURSING
Abstract
The rising incidence of depression among school going youth in London has drawn noteworthy
attention in the recent past. The mental health nursing needs of school going teenagers has been
the topic of research for the present systematic literature review. The paper aims at
understanding the areas where mental health nurses are to intervene immediately for addressing
the concern. The review clearly explains the rationale behind such a systematic review in context
of mental health nursing domain. The findings of the papers have been critically analyzed before
the main findings are presented. The discussion section highlights the implications for practice in
this regard.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Methodology and Methods..............................................................................................................6
Findings.........................................................................................................................................10
Discussion......................................................................................................................................17
References......................................................................................................................................21

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Topic: The depressed youth of England: Analyzing mental health nursing needs of school going
teenagers
Introduction
Mental health disorder is a great burden for young people and early adolescence is the
period when mental health issues emerge. Teenagers are prone to adapt unhealthy behaviors like
smoking, drinking and illicit drug use during adolescence and these factors has an impact not
only on their health at that time but also in later life. Recent evident suggest that onset of 50% of
mental disorders is observed in people below the age of 18 years (Das et al. 2016). Among
mental health disorders, major depressive disorder is considered to be one of the leading causes
of disability, morbidity and risk of suicide and the prevalence of the condition in teenagers is
particularly increasing (Roberts 2014). Currently, the prevalence of mental health disorder in
England is also an area of attention for research because recent statistics has showed that mental
illnesses are the leading cause of health related disabilities in children and young people in
England. Children and youth in England are more likely to be engaged in smoking, drug abuse
and alcohol misuse than engaging in educational attainment and employment (Public Health
England 2016). Hence, analyzing the factors predisposing school going teenagers to mental
health risk is important to address the mental health needs of the group.
Review of studies done on risk factors associated with mental illness in adolescent has
given many insights about the possible reason behind rise in mental health disorders in youth.
Different categories of risk factor behind mental health issues in adolescent includes individual
factors, family factors, school factors, drug related factors and social factors. Individual risk in
children includes feelings of low self-esteem, anxiety, loneliness and feelings of worthlessness in

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teenagers (Pinto et al. 2014). In addition, school related factors include experience of bullying,
discrimination and low school performance. Bullying is a serious issue for school-age children
and adolescents as experiences of bullying renders both short term and long-term impact on
mental health of children (McDougall and Vaillancourt 2015). A study investigating about the
outcome of mental health in adolescents with bullying experience has revealed that bullied
school students had higher risk of depression and anxiety during their school years. Bullied
children were also found to have higher chances of psychosocial problems compared to children
who are not bullied. Impact of educational attainment of children due to bullying experience was
also found (Rothon et al. 2011). However, the lack of sensitivity analysis of data affected the
validity of the evidence. Hence, analyzing the role of this factor is essential to determine to
which extent mental health programs for school going adolescent in England can developed.
The above mentioned risk factors all pave the way for social isolation and consequently
development of mental health issues in adolescents. Bullying is just an example of school related
risk factors for mental problems in school going teenagers. Rothon et al. (2011) gave idea of the
impact of bullying on current health outcome and educational attainment in children, however it
underestimated the long term impact of such experience. Sigurdson et al. (2015) suggested that
victims of bullying have internalizing symptoms like that of depression, anxiety and fear or
externalizing symptoms such as tendency to show anger and aggression. This kind of behavior in
the long term compels children to engage in risky and impulsive behavior such as engaging in
criminal activities or engaging in drug abuse. It predispose them to high risk of psychiatric
hospitalization too. However, there might be other causes of depression and anxiety in school
going teenagers too. There is a need to understand the multiple factors involved in risk of mental

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ill for teenagers and analyze the interaction between those factors to understand mental health
needs of adolescents.
Just like teenage pregnancy, prevalence of depression in school going teenagers has also
become great public health issue for England. To facilitate development of effective health
promotion program for children before they develop mental illness, there is a need to effectively
identify and interpret association between different risk factors and it role in long term risk of
mental health problem in adolescents (Swartz, Hariri and Williamson 2017). Previous research
has covered about risk factors separately, however the association between family and social
factor or other factor has not been covered. Hence, the main is to explore the factors behind high
number of depressed youth in England and find out factors present in their life that predispose
them to risk of developing mental health issues. By conducting systematic search on depressed
school going school going teenagers, the associated between different risk factors can be
effectively analyzed. This in turn will help to identify and analyze mental health nursing needs
for the population group too.
The main research question for the task is ‘What are the mental health nursing needs for
depressed youth of England. By means of systematic review of relevant research articles,
relevant research article related to the study objective will be selected. The evaluation of the each
paper in terms of research question and critical framework, useful information can be obtained
regarding ways to improve mental health of teenagers in England. Research in this area is also
significant because data obtained from the research will help to target not only just school
children, but also other social support groups that are a necessary part of their life. This will
facilitate the delivery of holistic care and realization of a healthy and productive youth
population in England.