PBH91001: Mental Health Report on Suicide and Depression in Youths

Verified

Added on  2022/08/26

|12
|2540
|12
Report
AI Summary
This report, prepared by a student, investigates the relationship between depression and suicide in young people. It begins by formulating a PICO question to guide the research, focusing on the impact of perceptions and experiences of depression on suicide outcomes. The report details the methodology used, including the selection of databases (CINAHL, PubMed, and Medline), search terms, and inclusion/exclusion criteria. It outlines the search process, from identification of articles through screening, eligibility assessment, and inclusion, resulting in a final selection of six relevant papers. The discussion section analyzes the selected papers, highlighting the findings of primary research studies and a systematic review, and identifying key factors contributing to suicidality, family influences, and beliefs about suicide. The report concludes by emphasizing the implications of these findings for the design of effective mental health programs for youths. The report is a comprehensive analysis of the topic, providing a detailed overview of the research process and key findings.
Document Page
Running head: MENTAL HEALTH
Mental health

Name of the student:

Name of the University:

Author’s note
tabler-icon-diamond-filled.svg

Paraphrase This Document

Need a fresh take? Get an instant paraphrase of this document with our AI Paraphraser
Document Page
1MENTAL HEALTH
Introduction:

This report aims to provide a search strategy and search on database for six published

articles that gives answer to the topic of choice. The topic is related to the issue of suicide and

depression in young people and the main PICO question for the task are as follows:

In young people with depression (P?), what are the impact of perceptions and experience of

depression on suicide and depression outcome?

The significance of the above question is that it has been framed using the PICO format.

The significance of using this format is that it clearly defines the specific population,

intervention, comparison and outcome for a study. Thus, this form of questioning helps to refine

the research question and consider what should be included in the study too (
Raich & Skelly,
2013)
. The above PICO question clearly defines the focus the research.
There are many rationales for investigating about perceptions and experience of

depression and suicide. Firstly, investigating about the topic is important because of high suicide

risks in depressed youths and high rate of depression a major concern for this population. The

report by Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2016) states that in prevalence of major

depressive disorder is high in young Australian population and this eventually increases the risk

of suicide, suicide ideation and self-harm behaviours. In young people aged 0-14 years, suicide

has become the leading cause of deaths. Thus, investigating the experience of this young people

with depression and suicide ideation may help to identify what factors contribute to depression

and risk of self-harm behaviours. The second rationale for choosing this research question is that

multiple factors increase the risk of depression and exploring the lived experience of these group

of youths may help to understand what interventions are needed to prevent depression and suicde
Document Page
2MENTAL HEALTH
rates. From the concepts of sociological theories, the analysis of perception may help to

understand whether individual behaviour promotes such behaviour or there is connection with

other complex factors too (
Geisner et al., 2015).
The above PICO question has been developed after revising it several times. Firstly,

PICO format was chosen as it is evidence based technique to frame and answer clinical questions

(Scells et al., 2017).Although PICO format was taken from the beginning to develop a clear and

focussed question, initially the research population taken was people with severe mental illness.

This was revised after interpreting the population group is too broad and selecting specific

disease and age group would give more value to the findings. Thus, the population groups of

youth and mental health disorder of depression was taken because depression is the leading cause

of illness and disability in this age group (
World Health Organization, 2019). Hence, taking a
narrowed population group would enhance the value and applicability of research. Initially, there

was confusion regarding the outcome of interest. Depressive symptoms were taken as the

outcome initially. However, as depression and suicide are interconnected, it was finally decided

to take both in the outcome.

Methods:

To start with the process of searching for research literature, the first strategy was to look

for select high quality database. Three databases that were selected for searching articles include

CINAHL, PubMed and Medline. The rationale for selecting these databases is that they all are

high quality and renowned database that publishes research papers in the field of biomedical and

health care literature. PubMed provides free access to MEDLINE and even the possibility to get

access to full text articles. The initial search for papers without any pre-set filters was done in all
Document Page
3MENTAL HEALTH
the three databases. The key search terms that were used included ‘depression’, ‘suicide’,

‘youths’, ‘young people’, ‘perception’ and experiences. These search terms were combined

together to ensure that more relevant papers were taken. No filters were applied at this stage.

During search for articles in CINAHL data, advance article searching was used so that

filters could be applied during the search process. The advantage of filter is that it helps to define

certain criteria for research. Search filters are also effective in defining specific criteria for

research and searching for specific subjects (
Beale et al., 2019). Thus, search filters were applied
to save time and get reliable research paper. The first filter was applied related to research

publication date by selecting data from 2010 to 2019. Secondly, subject headings were chosen

from advanced search filters to get the most relevant data. Filters were also applied for language

and types of research papers. English language was chosen as the language and full text peer

reviewed articles as the type of source. Moreover, Boolean logic was used to increase the

possibility of getting the most relevant papers related to the research question. The following

table defines how truncations, synonyms and Boolean operators were used in place of each

search terms.

Search terms
Synonyms Truncations Boolean operators
Depression
Depressive disorder,
major depression,

depressed mood

Depress?
Depression OR
depressive disorders

Depression AND

suicide in youths

Suicide
Suicidal behaviour,
suicide ideation, self-

harm

Suicid?
Suicide or suicidal
ideation

Suicide AND perception
tabler-icon-diamond-filled.svg

Paraphrase This Document

Need a fresh take? Get an instant paraphrase of this document with our AI Paraphraser
Document Page
4MENTAL HEALTH
of youths

Suicide AND

experience of youths

Perception
Experience, beliefs,
opinion

Belie?
Depression AND youth
perception

Suicide AND

depression AND youths

In addition, to use of search limiters, inclusion and exclusion criteria for search process

was also developed. The significance of including inclusion criteria is that it helps in designing

high quality research protocols. It enhances clarity during the search process as it defines key

features that are important in a research participants or a study. These decisions have an impact

of external validity of the study too (
Patino & Ferreira, 2018). The inclusion criteria for the study
included all studies must have youths with depression as the main sample, all the studies must

give idea about lived experience of depressions and suicidal behaviours and all studies must be

published within the last 10 years. Youths with other severe illness were also excluded to

maintain external validity of the findings.

Results:

There were four stages to the research process namely identification, screening, eligibility

and inclusion. During the identification phase, electronic search for data was done in PubMed,

MEDLINE and CINAHL. The number of articles obtained based on initial search in each

database was as follows:
Document Page
5MENTAL HEALTH
Database
No. of articles
CINAHL
55
PubMed
150
MEDLINE
143
The number of articles retrieved for PubMed and MEDLINE was much higher than the other

database because no filters were applied and only search terms were used. Hence, total papers

retrieved after electronic database search included 348. During the next stage of screening, all

papers screening by looking at titles and abstract of each papers and assessing any duplicate

papers. 55 duplicate papers were excluded at this stage. In addition, based on title/abstract

screening of remaining 293 articles, 112 papers were excluded as it had older age group or those

with other types of illness too. The papers which were reporting only about prevalence rate and

no details on their experiences were excluded. Total articles remaining after this stage included

181 papers.

The third stage was the eligibility stage and at this stage full text eligibility of papers was

assessed using the inclusion and exclusion criteria. Overall 175 papers were excluded because of

the following reasons:

The sample size in these articles did not matched the age groups
The study sample had other several illness apart from depression
The study explored the effect of an intervention and did not explored experiences
The study focused on other outcomes like social support
Document Page
6MENTAL HEALTH
Records identified through electronic database search in MEDLINE,
CINAHL and PubMed

(n = 348)

Records after duplicates removed

(n = 55 )

Records screened

(n = 293)

Records excluded

(n = 112 )

Full-text articles assessed for
eligibility

(n = 181 )

Studies included in the
review

(n = 6 )

Full-text articles
excluded, with
reasons

(n = 175 )

Thus, the final list of papers that were ultimately selected for the review included 6

papers. The above flow chart below gives a summary of the overall search process:

Figure 1: Summary of the search process at each stage
tabler-icon-diamond-filled.svg

Paraphrase This Document

Need a fresh take? Get an instant paraphrase of this document with our AI Paraphraser
Document Page
7MENTAL HEALTH
Discussion:

Total six papers were found to give answer to the research question. Out of six papers,

five papers were primary research papers and one paper was a systematic review paper. Out of

five primary research papers, the study by
Issakainen (2015) used qualitative approach to
investigate about young people’s view of communicating their depression. In relation to the

research question, this paper informed regarding the youths view about resources taken to seek

support on depression. This paper is relevant however it does not explore much about factors

contributing to risk. Hence, this is not considered the best research evidence. The second paper

by
Geisner et al. (2015) was a qualitative study that explored college student’s perception of
depressed mood. The study assessed symptoms of depression and feelings of sadness, depression

and suicide ideation. The study mainly revealed underestimation of depression among male

students and over-estimation of the prevalence of suicidal ideation. The study gave idea about

intensity of feelings. However, this again is not best evidence as it does not fully explores causes

and factors contributing to depression. The study by
Holley (2015) and Lesniak (2010)
investigated about the lived experience of adolescent who engage in self-harm behaviour. These

two studies revealed that child trauma, feeling abandoned and ashamed resulted in such

behaviours. However, the gap in this paper is that it has certain biases such as selection bias.

Out of six papers, two best research evidences have been identified. The first is a primary

research study by
Orri et al. (2014) which used qualitative approach to assess attempted suicides
by adolescent and young adults. The result gave many ideas about events leading to suicide. For
Document Page
8MENTAL HEALTH
some it was a way to free oneself from intolerable condition and for some it occurs because of

poor interpersonal relationship, communicative issues and feelings of revenge. Continued period

of depression was also associated with high suicide ideation. Thus, by the use of thematic

approach and detailed narration, this study shows what factors engage youth in such behaviour.

Moreover, systematic review by
Grimmond et al. (2019) has been identified as the best study as
it used systematic review as a research method which comes under top level in evidence

hierarchy and by getting the same results from multiple studies; this study enhances the

generalizability of the findings. The key findings of this review were that it gave in-depth details

regarding factors contributing to suicidality, family influences and beliefs about suicide. It gives

implications to design effective mental health programs for youths.
Document Page
9MENTAL HEALTH
References:

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2016).
Mental health of Australia’s young people and
adolescents.
Retrieved from: https://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/42e2f292-4ebb-4e8d-
944c-32c014ad2796/ah16-5-5-mental-health-australias-young-people-

adolescents.pdf.aspx

Beale, S., Duffy, S., Glanville, J., Lefebvre, C., Wright, D., McCool, R., ... & Smith, L. (2014).

Choosing and using methodological search filters: searchers' views.
Health Information
& Libraries Journal
, 31(2), 133-147.
Geisner, I. M., Kirk, J. L., Mittmann, A. J., Kilmer, J. R., & Larimer, M. E. (2015). College

students’ perceptions of depressed mood: Exploring accuracy and

associations.
Professional psychology: research and practice, 46(5), 375.
Geisner, I. M., Kirk, J. L., Mittmann, A. J., Kilmer, J. R., & Larimer, M. E. (2015). College

students’ perceptions of depressed mood: Exploring accuracy and

associations.
Professional psychology: research and practice, 46(5), 375.
Grimmond, J., Kornhaber, R., Visentin, D., & Cleary, M. (2019). A qualitative systematic review

of experiences and perceptions of youth suicide.
PloS one, 14(6).
Holley, E. E. (2015).
The lived experience of adolescents who engage in nonsuicidal self-
injury
(Doctoral dissertation, Antioch University).
tabler-icon-diamond-filled.svg

Paraphrase This Document

Need a fresh take? Get an instant paraphrase of this document with our AI Paraphraser
Document Page
10MENTAL HEALTH
Issakainen, M. (2015). Young people's views of communicating their depression.
International
Journal of Adolescence and Youth
, 20(1), 86-99.
Lesniak, R. G. (2010). The lived experience of adolescent females who self-injure by cutting.

Adv Emerg Nurs J,; 32
(2): 137-47.
Orri, M., Paduanello, M., Lachal, J., Falissard, B., Sibeoni, J., & Revah-Levy, A. (2014).

Qualitative approach to attempted suicide by adolescents and young adults: the

(neglected) role of revenge.
PLoS One, 9(5).
Patino, C. M., & Ferreira, J. C. (2018). Inclusion and exclusion criteria in research studies:

definitions and why they matter.
Jornal Brasileiro de Pneumologia, 44(2), 84-84.
Raich, A. L., & Skelly, A. C. (2013). Asking the right question: specifying your study

question.
Evidence-based spine-care journal, 4(02), 068-071.
Scells, H., Zuccon, G., Koopman, B., Deacon, A., Azzopardi, L., & Geva, S. (2017, November).

Integrating the framing of clinical questions via PICO into the retrieval of medical

literature for systematic reviews. In
Proceedings of the 2017 ACM on Conference on
Information and Knowledge Management
(pp. 2291-2294).
World Health Organization (2019
). Adolescent mental health. Retrieved from:
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/adolescent-mental-health
Document Page
11MENTAL HEALTH
chevron_up_icon
1 out of 12
circle_padding
hide_on_mobile
zoom_out_icon
[object Object]