In day to day medical dispensation, psychiatrists encounter several challenges. The mental health of a person is a global concern that needs to be taken care of with all means possible. Often, many people of different age groups have mental health issues where some seek medication while others choose to ignore it. The most vulnerable group to mental health issues are youngsters who may develop depressions due to their life endeavors such as schooling, relationships, family misunderstandings, among others.
As a part of a mental health team at children’s mental health agency in my hometown, I realized that there is a big problem with the psychiatric process of the 10-years-old client diagnosed with depression by a fellow psychiatrist. The problem is jungled up with parents’ attitudes towards the medication received by their child. Consequently, I encountered a real problem in giving the appropriate explanation as to what exact measure was necessary to provide the child with since the parents already had negative perspectives about both psychiatry and medication. To support their viewpoints, they brought in an article about anti-depressants to explain their reasoning for not giving their child the prescribed medication of fluoxetine (Prozac). Prozac is an anti-depressant typically used to treat depression and other conditions.
The article brought in to explain parents’ reasoning for not giving their child the prescribed medication talks about medical practitioner’s opinions on anti-depressants that they may be worsening depression. From the article, it is true that anti-depressants have been there since the 1950s and underwent several incorporations before the development of current advanced selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). These anti-depressants function by inhibiting the serotonin reabsorption into the brain. Medical practitioners have a common notion that depression is due to the insufficiency of serotonin in the brain.
Regardless of SSRIs being safer than traditional methods of anti-depressants and providing symptom relief to many, it holds a lot of skepticism. There is uncertainty as to whether or not these anti-depressants treat long-standing depression. Evident enough, medical practitioners are swift to recommend anti-depressant treatment in advanced stages of depression, which eventually worsens the situation due to side effects of the alleged medication, which may include sleeplessness, anxiety, or worst enough, loss of sexual urge.
Nevertheless, the article holds people’s opinions on the causes of depression and what exactly depression is. For instance, the article provides David Healy believes that depression is not linked to emotional disorders, but instead, it is an infectious disease. Consequently, Dr. Turhan Canli of Stony Brook University in New York speculates that parasites, viruses, or bacteria are the causatives of depression as he wrote in his journal “Biology of Mood and Anxiety Disorders.”
Still in the article, Professor David Taylor, a director, and head of Pharmacy and Pathology and the Pharmaceutical Sciences Clinical Academic Group respectively, claims that researchers and psychiatrists have an understanding of SSRIs’ effectiveness in the treatment of several disorders but have no clue of how they function. He puts that SSRIs’ effect is on the serotonin but entirely has numerous subsidiary effects in the brain.
With all these, it is evident that the article holds facts and opinions part of knowledge that is essential. The conflict between opinions and facts, therefore, brings confusion, and that is why the 10-year-old’s parents became negative on the child’s psychiatric process. This was the main thing that led the parents’ negative perspectives about their child’s remedial procedure. To solve this entire problem, five-steps of the Key Functions of Problem Solving is applicable. The five steps include;
- Developing a precise understanding of the problem,
- Developing the requirements for a suitable choice,
- Developing many alternatives to the problem solution,
- Assessing the positive aspects of the developed alternatives
- Assessing the negative aspects of the alternatives.
Step One: Precise understanding of the problem
The child’s parents, as described earlier, interfered with the medication process trough development of negative perspectives towards medication. To support their viewpoints, they brought in an article about anti-depressants to explain their reasoning for not giving their child the prescribed fluoxetine medication. Developing an appropriate explanation as to what exact measure was necessary to provide the child became a significant problem since the parents already had negative perspectives about both psychiatry and medication.
The article that parents brought in a session with me bears opinions and facts about anti-depressants. It compelled them to develop negative perspectives of the psychiatric prescription offered to their child. The article carries uncertainty as to whether or not these anti-depressants treat long-standing depression that reduced trust in the remedy provided for depression. The author allegedly instills fears in article users by describing that medical practitioners are swift to recommend anti-depressant treatment in early and advanced stages of depression, which eventually worsen the situation due to side effects of the alleged medication.
Step Two: Developing requirements for a suitable choice
To develop requirements for a suitable choice, I actively involved my psychiatric team in helping to find the right thing to do. The problem having been pointed out, the patient, parents, and a group of psychiatrists hold a meeting to deliberate on the best choice that suits the patient’s condition. To do this, the state of the patient is assessed and examined to know if the condition is indeed depression or not. If it is depression, its progress is further reviewed to provide results that will be the best match with a particular psychiatric medication.
The client’s parents have to be cleared on their negative perspectives on psychiatric medication to allow psychiatrists to do their level best in dispensing proper medication to the 10-year-old. Further, the patient’s symptoms are brought to the table to deliberate the extent of the effect of the condition, thus allowing for appropriate solution development.
Step Three: Developing many alternatives to problem solution
Many psychiatric medication alternatives are developed to enable the patient to choose the best suitable one. Parents, as well as our team, is responsible for developing these alternatives to minimize biasness and provide parents with an appropriate reason as to why a particular alternative is better than another. The possible alternatives to solving this problem are peer support, ecotherapy, complementary therapies, and prescribed medication.
Peer support can be people who had comparable experience and can sympathize with the 10-year-old. Still, the child can be involved in ecotherapy – a wide range of therapeutic activities – such as adventure and other outdoor activities. Significantly, complementary therapies such as involvement in meditation, gym, or use of traditional remedies can be chosen. Most importantly, medication can be provided to help treat the symptoms of depression. These alternatives will give us a right choice that the parent will deem fit for their child.
Step Four: Assessing the positive aspects of the developed alternatives
Positive aspects of alternatives will determine the best one to take. Peer support is fundamentally social, emotional, and more practical, thus providing a more excellent perception of empathy as well as respect to the one receiving it. It can be done via peer education, mentoring, or listening. Ecotherapy links to nature. Ecotherapy lowers one’s blood pressure as well as pulsation, slows breathing rate, and offering a significant increase in psychological clarity.
Complementary therapies allow one to feel more in control of the recovery process and stay positive. People use these therapies since they can utilize them in the comfort of their homes and not necessarily having to visit the psychiatric facilities. Prescribed medication to depression helps treat symptoms and jump-start one’s mood within a short time, boosting one’s moral.
Step Five: Assessing the negative aspects of the alternatives
The negative aspects of developed alternatives eliminate the alternatives that are not suitable for solving the problem at hand. However, peer support in depression does not ultimately assume the professional expertise, may conflict with one’s beliefs and values and may take in individuals who prey on the victim. Ecotherapy, too, has limitations. It takes a longer recovery time, causes bigger distress, and reduces comfort. Unfortunately, complementary therapies take a longer time to work, necessitates adjustments of lifestyles, and may be incompatible with other drugs. Finally, psychiatric prescribed medications lead to insomnia, dizziness, weight gain, as well as the loss of sexual desire.
From analyzing both positive and negative aspects of developed alternatives, prescribed medication with peer support combined is the best remedy of all alternatives since their positive aspects are more practical than their negative perspectives. I, therefore, assured the child’s parents that two chosen alternatives are the best remedy for their depressed child. Thus, the 10-year-old deserve both prescribed medication and peer support to bring him back to the normalcy of attending school and spending time with his friends and playing with the children in the neighborhood. Parents, thus, should always follow medical practitioner’s decision in finding solutions in line with their children’s mental health.