Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Pregnant and Parenting Adolescents (original) (raw)

Mental health in primary care for adolescent parents

Mental health in family medicine, 2012

Mental health care is important for everyone, especially teenagers. However, seeking mental health services may be challenging for teenagers, particularly when they are also parents. Offering mental health care in a safe, attractive and easily accessible manner, such as primary care, increases the chances that teenage parents will receive help. Comprehensive care models need to be established to address the many needs that at-risk young mothers and their children face. There are a number of programmes available to teenage mothers that either address healthcare and psychosocial needs or focus primarily on improvements in parenting skills; yet an integrated model that delivers medical, psychiatric and psychosocial care and facilitates positive parenting skills seems to be missing. Through a university-community partnership we have recently developed a model curriculum - the Mom Power (MP) group programme - at the University of Michigan which aims to close this gap in service delivery....

Maternal Mental Health in the USA

International Journal for the Advancement of Counselling

Mothers face enormous mental health challenges that need to be addressed by counsellors. Women have higher rates of depression, anxiety, and stress due to environmental, cultural, and biological factors. Findings from a sample of 525 US mothers showed that younger mothers had higher levels of stress, anxiety, and depression, while mothers with lower incomes showed higher levels of anxiety and depression. Results also indicated that fewer mothers have levels of stress, anxiety, and depression that fall into a normal range than a normal, non-clinical population and that substantially more mothers report extremely severe levels of stress, anxiety, and depression than normal, non-mother populations. Implications for counsellors include making services accessible to low-income mothers, attending to personal gender bias, and assessing clients for anxiety, depression, and stress.

Trends in mental health of an adolescent medicine clinic patient population

International journal of adolescent medicine and health

The correlation between exposure to forms of violence and development of mental disorders in victims is well established. The purpose of this paper was to identify mental health problems in an adolescent medicine clinic population in Lexington, KY and to investigate potential correlation of mental disorders with psychosocial factors. Data were gathered from the charts of 169 adolescent clinic patients (age 10-22) seen in the clinic for mental health care and analyzed using Excel. Of the patient population, 68% were urban, whereas 32% were rural. In terms of gender, 40% of the patients were male and 60% were female, 80% were white, 13% black, and 7% had other racial background(s). The most prevalent mental disorders in this group were depression 32.12%, 13% with generalized anxiety disorder, 8.2% with an attention deficit disorder (including ADHD), and 5.76% with an adjustment disorder. The abovementioned demographic trends showed that depression continues to be the most common menta...

Adolescent mental health: A guide for the primary care provider

Women's healthcare, 2022

Mental health disorders are common among adolescents, with anxiety and depression being the most frequently encountered. To reduce severity of illness and risk of lifelong implications, it is essential for women's health nurse practitioners and other clinicians who provide adolescent primary care to be skilled at routine mental health screening and evaluation, and able to confidently manage findings. This article provides a brief overview of the prevalence of and risks for depression and anxiety among adolescents in the United States, evidence-based resources for patient evaluation, and management options for these common mental health conditions identified in primary care settings.

Estimates of Mental Health Problems in a Vulnerable Population within a Primary Care Setting

Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 2016

We examined the prevalence of mental disorders in a primary care setting affiliated with a large academic medical center. We also examined whether there were racial differences in mental health disorders. Patients were seeking medical care in an outpatient medical clinic; mental health data were available for them via medical records (n=767). Overall, 45% of patients had a diagnosed mental health problem; the most commonly reported form of mental disorder was depression. African Americans (OR= 1.88; CI: 1.21-2.91) were more likely than Whites to have a diagnosed mental health problem. These results suggest a strong mental health treatment need among patients seeking primary care in urban settings. The evidence garnered from this study underscores the need to detect and treat mental health problems systematically within outpatient primary care clinics that serve similarly vulnerable populations.