Importance of Thorough Psychiatric Assessment
Explain why a thorough psychiatric assessment of a child/adolescent is
important.
There are several reasons that make it important for healthcare workers to provide a thorough
psychiatric assessment to a child/adolescent. First, the symptoms exhibited by a
child/adolescent are complex and often overlap across different mental health conditions.
Also, a thorough psychiatric assessment of a child/adolescent helps to understand the root
causes of mental health issues.
Importance of Thorough Psychiatric Assessment
A thorough psychiatric assessment of a child/adolescent
enhances the development of specialized treatment plans whether therapy, medication, or
educational support. Moreover, it is important to perform a thorough psychiatric assessment
of a child/adolescent because it helps to treat existing mental health conditions early enough
and thus prevent more severe problems later in life.
Describe two different symptom rating scales that would be appropriate to use
during the psychiatric assessment of a child/adolescent.
The two symptom rating scales that would be appropriate for use during the psychiatric
assessment of a child/adolescent include the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and the
Children’s Depression Inventory (CDI).
Importance of Thorough Psychiatric Assessment
The CBCL helps to assess emotional and behavioral
problems in children (Biederman et al., 2020). This rating scale includes internalizing
problems, externalizing problems, social problems, thought problems, and attention problems
(Biederman et al., 2020). The rating scale can either be completed by a parent or caregiver to
provide an overview of both the behavioral and emotional functioning of a child (Biederman
et al., 2020). The CDI on the other hand aims to assess the symptoms of depression in
children and adolescents (Cumba-Avilés, 2020). The scale contains components such as
negative self-esteem, negative mood, anhedonia, and ineffectiveness (Cumba-Avilés, 2020).
The CDI is a self-report scale and aims to identify depressive symptoms and their severity.
Describe two psychiatric treatment options for children and adolescents that
may not be used when treating adults.
There are some psychiatric treatment options that are tailored for use among children and
adolescents and may not be used when treating adults. For example, play therapy is a unique
treatment approach that helps them express their thoughts, feelings, and experiences
(Koukourikos et al., 2021). It includes activities such as using toys, drawing and role-playing. APA