Mood disorders can impact every facet of a child’s life, making the most basic activities difficult for clients and their families. This was the case for 13-year-old Kara, who was struggling at home and at school. For more than 8 years, Kara suffered from temper tantrums, impulsiveness, inappropriate behavior, difficulty in judgment, and sleep issues. As a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner working with pediatric clients, you must be able to assess whether these symptoms are caused by psychological, social, or underlying growth and development issues. You must then be able recommend appropriate therapies.

This week, as you examine antidepressant therapies, you explore the assessment and treatment of pediatric clients with mood disorders. You also consider ethical and legal implications of these therapies.

Assignment: Assessing and Treating Pediatric Clients With Mood DisorderWhen pediatric clients present with mood disorders, the process of assessing, diagnosing, and treating them can be quite complex. Children not only present with different signs and symptoms than adult clients with the same disorders, but they also metabolize medications much differently. As a result, psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners must exercise caution when prescribing psychotropic medications to these clients. For this Assignment, as you examine the client case study in this week’s Learning Resources, consider how you might assess and treat pediatric clients presenting with mood disorders.

Note: This Assignment is the first of 10 assignments that are based on interactive client case studies. For these assignments, you will be required to make decisions about how to assess and treat clients. Each of your decisions will have a consequence. Some consequences will be insignificant, and others may be life altering. You are not expected to make the “right” decision every time; in fact, some scenarios may not have a “right” decision. You are, however, expected to learn from each decision you make and demonstrate the ability to weigh risks versus benefits to prescribe appropriate treatments for clients.

Learning Objectives

Students will:

• Assess client factors and history to develop personalized plans of antidepressant therapy for pediatric clients
• Analyze factors that influence pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic processes in pediatric clients requiring antidepressant therapy
• Evaluate efficacy of treatment plans
• Analyze ethical and legal implications related to prescribing antidepressant therapy to pediatric clients

Assignment: Assessing and Treating Pediatric Clients With Mood Disorders

When pediatric clients present with mood disorders, the process of assessing, diagnosing, and treating them can be quite complex. Children not only present with different signs and symptoms than adult clients with the same disorders, but they also metabolize medications much differently. As a result, psychiatric mental health nurse practitioners must exercise caution when prescribing psychotropic medications to these clients. For this Assignment, as you examine the client case study in this week’s Learning Resources, consider how you might assess and treat pediatric clients presenting with mood disorders.

Note: This Assignment is the first of 10 assignments that are based on interactive client case studies. For these assignments, you will be required to make decisions about how to assess and treat clients. Each of your decisions will have a consequence. Some consequences will be insignificant, and others may be life altering. You are not expected to make the “right” decision every time; in fact, some scenarios may not have a “right” decision. You are, however, expected to learn from each decision you make and demonstrate the ability to weigh risks versus benefits to prescribe appropriate treatments for clients.

Learning Objectives

Students will:

• Assess client factors and history to develop personalized plans of antidepressant therapy for pediatric clients
• Analyze factors that influence pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic processes in pediatric clients requiring antidepressant therapy
• Evaluate efficacy of treatment plans
• Analyze ethical and legal implications related to prescribing antidepressant therapy to pediatric clients

Examine Case Study: An African American Child Suffering From Depression. You will be asked to make three decisions concerning the medication to prescribe to this client. Be sure to consider factors that might impact the client’s pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic processes.

• At each decision point stop to complete the following:
  • Decision #1
    • Which decision did you select?
    • Why did you select this decision? Support your response with evidence and references to the Learning Resources.
    • What were you hoping to achieve by making this decision? Support your response with evidence and references to the Learning Resources.
    • Explain any difference between what you expected to achieve with Decision #1 and the results of the decision. Why were they different?
  • Decision #2
    • Why did you select this decision? Support your response with evidence and references to the Learning Resources.
    • What were you hoping to achieve by making this decision? Support your response with evidence and references to the Learning Resources.
    • Explain any difference between what you expected to achieve with Decision #2 and the results of the decision. Why were they different?
  • Decision #3
    • Why did you select this decision? Support your response with evidence and references to the Learning Resources.
    • What were you hoping to achieve by making this decision? Support your response with evidence and references to the Learning Resources.
    • Explain any difference between what you expected to achieve with Decision #3 and the results of the decision. Why were they different?
• you can do a new assignment or edit this.  use the same format .NOTE Plagiarism must be less than 20 % for this to be accepted . reference not counted . thx

The assessing and Treating Pediatric Clients with Mood Disorders Introduction Depression is the most common mental disorder for young people, and it is associated with educational underachievement, self-harm, and suicidality. The depression rate among children this day is so disturbing. The effect of depression is devastating since it leads to a variety of physical and emotionally problems.

What is, what treatment options are available and the effects of the stigma of MDD on the African American child and family. Poverty level affects mental health status. I have work with a diverse group of patient in including African American in the course of my experience working in children in hospitals unit several years .I have to start with Zoloft 25mg. most provider I worked with will not want to give much medication because of this age group. randomized controlled trials (RCTs) approved it because the benefits.

The child is still presented with depressive symptoms. The patient and parent denies any side effect of Zoloft., but the child is still showing signs of major depressive disorder (MDD). I will increase Zoloft to 50mg to attain medication therapeutic effect.

If the higher dose help in reducing depression with no side effect of medication. This improvement should include participating in groups, peers interaction , improve sleep, appetite and academic improvement (American Psychiatric Association, 2018).

Decision Point Three Maintain current dose of Zoloft 50mg orally daily Reason for Selection When the patient shows improvement, we have to keep schedule medication especially when there is no side effect of medication. My patient has shown great degree of improvement, and there is no side effect to this patient with the dose of Zoloft 50mg.

Expected Results Treatment of depression, and monitoring is a continues process. Patient peer interaction, sleep, appetite, should gradually improve.

Differences between Expected Results and Actual Results Choosing Zoloft 50mg on my African American child patient seems to be working, with no problem. Patient is responding well to therapy. I will continue patient with current dose. With this gradual improvement, I have no reasons to change medication or dosage. I will schedule an appointment and the dose might be increase if depression increases.

A careful monitoring by parents, caregivers and health care professionals is important for any child or teenager taking an antidepressant for depression or any other condition. Supervising and safe monitoring of the child is very important during therapy (National Alliance on Mental Illness, 2017). and adolescents with major depression and anxiety disorders.

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