Adolescent Contemporary Issues and Resources Report - NRS-434VN

This report addresses the contemporary issue of substance abuse among adolescents, highlighting its impact on their physical and mental health. It details the external stressors associated with this issue, such as peer pressure and easy access to substances. The report outlines assessment strategies, including mental state and physical assessments, and emphasizes the importance of ethical parameters like patient privacy and autonomy. It also explores various support options, such as rehabilitation centers, motivational interviewing, and community-based programs, tailored to the adolescent's developmental stage and severity of symptoms. The report provides a comprehensive overview of the challenges adolescents face and the resources available to support their well-being.

Running head: NURSING
NURSING
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1NURSING
Contemporary issue and associated external stressors:
The contemporary issue that has been chosen with regard to poor physical and mental
health outcome among the adolescents can be mentioned as ‘substance abuse’. Research
studies report that on an average 50% of the adolescents studying in the 8th, 10th or 12th grade
have abused illicit/prescription drugs once in their life. In addition to this, research studies
also report that 23.6% of the students in their 12th grade have abused illicit drugs in the
previous year (Hasin et al., 2015). Also, 6.5% of the students in their 8th grade have been
reported to use marijuana within the last 30 days (Kandel & Kandel, 2015). The evidence
base further suggests that the external stressors associated with the increase in prevalence of
substance abuse among the adolescents can be defined as peer pressure, increased access
through a friend or increased influence of a relative or a senior. Research reports further
suggests that increased alcohol dependence has resulted in the death of 4,358 adolescents
within the United States pertaining to accidents that included homicides, alcohol poisoning,
drowning an motor vehicle crashes (Kandel & Kandel, 2015; Hasin et al., 2015). Further,
increased substance abuse have been studied to cause impaired judgment ability which
increases the probability of adolescents to engage in high risk activities such as engaging in
unprotected sexual intercourse or demonstrating violent behaviour.
Assessment Strategies for screening:
The assessment strategies that can be undertaken to screen the existing mental health
condition and assess the impact of the existing stressors can be mentioned as (Winters et al.,
2014):
 Mental State Evaluation
In order to assess the physical health status of the adolescent, the following assessments
should be undertaken:

2NURSING
 Vital assessment
 Head to toe assessment
 Nutritional assessment
Associated ethical parameters:
The ethical parameters that need to be thoroughly considered while dealing with an
adolescent patient would include, preservation of patient privacy and maintenance of patient
autonomy. Information that the individual does not want to be communicated to the guardian
needs to be kept secure unless the information is vital and can impact the wellness of the
individual or an associated individual (McCabe et al., 2017). Additional assessment
considerations could include conducting a cultural and a spiritual assessment so as to device
an appropriate culturally safe care plan to facilitate recovery.
Recommendation of available support options:
The recommendation of an appropriate recovery based support option for the
adolescents would specifically involve consideration of the appropriate developmental stage
of the concerned adolescent. Based on the developmental stage and the intensity of the
symptoms, the concerned individual can be referred to adolescent specific rehabilitation
centres (Winters et al., 20-14). Further, there is an increased probability of witnessing lack of
treatment seeking behaviour and in such cases, conducting motivational interview or
fostering psychological counselling can help to acquire positive outcome. In addition to this,
based on the severity of the symptoms, adolescents can also be referred to self-help programs
or recovery high schools to foster improvement of symptoms (Winters et al., 2014). In
addition to this, adaption of a community based reinforcement and recovery approach has
also been studied to improve cumulative health outcome in adolescents pertaining to
problems related to uncontrolled substance abuse.

3NURSING
References:
Hasin, D. S., Saha, T. D., Kerridge, B. T., Goldstein, R. B., Chou, S. P., Zhang, H., ... &
Huang, B. (2015). Prevalence of marijuana use disorders in the United States between
2001-2002 and 2012-2013. JAMA psychiatry, 72(12), 1235-1242.
Kandel, D., & Kandel, E. (2015). The Gateway Hypothesis of substance abuse:
developmental, biological and societal perspectives. Acta Paediatrica, 104(2), 130-
137.
McCabe, S. E., West, B. T., Veliz, P., McCabe, V. V., Stoddard, S. A., & Boyd, C. J. (2017).
Trends in medical and nonmedical use of prescription opioids among US adolescents:
1976–2015. Pediatrics, 139(4), e20162387.
Winters, K. C., Tanner-Smith, E. E., Bresani, E., & Meyers, K. (2014). Current advances in
the treatment of adolescent drug use. Adolescent health, medicine and therapeutics, 5,
199.