Mnemonic device HEEADSSS
The Mnemonic HEEDESSS stands for: Home environment, Education, Eating, Activities, Drugs, Sexuality, Suicide, and Safety. For adolescents this is a major concern when they are growing and trying to understand changes in their personality and physical growth. For example, when looking at the Home environment, there are always various issues that adolescent will find awkward or abnormal. For example the issue with parenting is often a major concern and most adolescents find themselves on the opposite sides with the rest of the family. They often tend to be rebellious and emotional whenever the parents take an upper hand in leading their way (Stoecker, Vetter, & Dyer, 2017). The home environment is a very important part of adolescent growth and parents need to make it as peaceful and accommodative as possible. They certainly find the need for privacy, leadership and the need to be treated as adults. Due to the changes in their physical body, most parents will be required to reorganize the home environment to ensure that they have their privacy. Education on the other hand depends on many things; this include peer groups, learning patterns, this is mostly influenced by friends and the community environment. Education for adolescents goes beyond earning grades to building careers, these careers also have to be popular with their fellow peers, when educators fail to understand this it may lead to other psychological problems (Stoecker, Vetter, & Dyer, 2017).
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Eating disorder is a common problem among adolescents, especially girls. In most cases an eating disorder will develop as a way that adolescent will want to feel in control about what is happening around their lives. As much as people with eating disorder are going to focus on food, shape and weight, for adolescents there are often other underlying issues that need to explored, as they are the ones that trigger the eating problems among them. When it comes to ambitions, many adolescents find it difficult to realize their ambitions and are often moving from one activity to the next (Bhattacharya, 2017). In most cases this is based on quest for popularity; unfortunately when they fail in this it leads to other underlying psychological issues like depression, suicide and other social vices. Also drugs is a growing concern among adolescents, as more and more adolescents are falling in the trap of drug use at a tender age. In many cases, they are usually introduced to drugs by their peers and what they observe from family members. Drug use leads to other risky behavior like irresponsible sex, theft and violence. Adolescent sexuality has become complicated with the rise of same sex relationships. Their physical body changes will affect their self-esteem when one begins feeling different from their peers. Adolescent suicide is a growing health concern and is the second leading cause of death for young people between ages 15-24 after accidents (Bhattacharya, 2017). It is important that structures are put in place to counter the underlying reasons. Safety should be looked from the perspective of health; both physiological and psychological.
References
Bhattacharya, P. (2017). Chapter-019 HEEADSSS Assessment of the Adolescent Child. Algorithms in Pediatrics, 76-78. doi:10.5005/jp/books/13030_20
Stoecker, W. V., Vetter, R. S., & Dyer, J. A. (2017). NOT RECLUSE—A Mnemonic Device to Avoid False Diagnoses of Brown Recluse Spider Bites. JAMA Dermatology, 153(5), 377. doi:10.1001/jamadermatol.2016.5665
