191585 - Supporting Adolescents with Mental Health Concerns

Location: Online

Adolescent mental and emotional health issues can include depression, self-harm, grief and loss, eating disorders, suicidality – just to name a few. This session will assist GPs to identify a variety of mental health problems in adolescence, identify potential causal factors contributing to mental health concerns and adapt cognitive and behavioural strategies.

Relevance to General Practice

Providing mental health services in primary healthcare involves diagnosing and treating people with mental disorders; putting in place strategies to prevent mental disorders and ensuring that primary health care workers are able to apply key psychosocial and behavioural science skills, for example, interviewing, counselling and interpersonal skills, in their day to day work in order to improve overall health outcomes in primary healthcare.

Learning outcomes

Identify different types of mental health problems in adolescence and be able to apply this learning to your own practice.

Identify a variety of potential causal factors contributing to mental health concerns in adolescents and be able to assess for these in working with young people.

Compose and ask a range of appropriately worded questions to help an adolescent express concerns related to wellbeing.

Adapt evidence based cognitive and behavioural strategies for use with adolescents with mental health concerns.

Domains of General Practice

D1. Communication skills and the patient-doctor relationship

D2. Applied professional knowledge and skills

D3. Population health and the context of general practice

D4. Professional and ethical role

D5. Organisational and legal dimensions

Curriculum Contextual Units