NURS 6630 Week 2 Therapy for Pediatric Clients With Mood Disorders

NURS 6630 Week 2 Therapy for Pediatric Clients With Mood Disorders Essay Assignment

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.

NURS 6630 Week 2 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

The Assignment

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?
Also include how ethical considerations might impact your treatment plan and communication with clients.

Note: Support your rationale with a minimum of three academic resources. While you may use the course text to support your rationale, it will not count toward the resource requirement.

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