Mood disorders can impact every facet of a child’s life, making the most basic activities difficult for clients and their families.

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.

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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 Disorder 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

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. 1 Depression can reduce the child ability to function at academically (American Psychiatric Association, 2018).

We can categorize depression in children into two types, the 1st is major depression in this type of depression the child will be in depression for less than a month and the child might experience it again sometime in life. Dysthymia depression is a less form of severe chronic depression that last for two years in total (American Psychological Association, 2016). This is the most serious and considered the leading cause of suicide death, and disability in adolescent in this age group (WHO, 2014) Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) is antidepressant and helps children and adolescent to get back into a stable mood from mood disorder. It is important to monitor children at a closely at the first four weeks of administering this medication, this help identify a change in behavior.Some sign to watch for include sleeplessness, withdrawal from social gathering or unnecessary agitation (Anxiety and Depression Association of America, 2016).

2 This paper is my opportunity to examine An African American Child Suffering From Depression. What is, what treatment options are available and the effects of the stigma of MDD on the African American child and family. 3 African Americans are no different when its comes to prevalence of mental health conditions when compared to the rest of the population. Poverty level affects mental health status. 1 African Americans living below the poverty level, as compared to those over twice the poverty level, are 3 times more likely to report psychological distress Decision Selected # 1 I will choose Zoloft 25mg as my first choice of medication Reason for Selection: 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. 1 Zoloft is considered “off-label meaning it is not approve by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat depression in children and adolescents; randomized controlled trials (RCTs) approved it because the benefits. 1 According to the International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Allied Professions (IACAPAP, 2016), Zoloft is safes and is the best option to treat mood disorders in children in this age group.