Preparing the Discussion

Follow these guidelines when completing each component of the assignment. Contact your course faculty if you have questions.

Mental health care is often initiated in the primary care setting. Screenings are a critical part of identifying clients who may require psychiatric care. Carefully read the questions below and address each in your initial post.

1. Application  of  Course  Knowledge
   1. Identify your clinical practicum setting (primary care office, urgent care, etc.) and a population that you typically see (i.e., adolescents, women, older adults).
   2. Discuss mental health screening tools used at your clinical site. If no screening tools are currently used, which ones would you recommend?
   3. Describe the quality of the mental health care you have observed. Discuss disparities or biases, if any, in the care provided to different members of the population.
   4. Screening opportunities are often missed in vulnerable populations and those with limited access to care. Describe at least TWO changes you recommend in your practice setting and community to increase the frequency of mental health screenings within vulnerable populations.
2. Integration of Evidence: Integrate relevant scholarly sources as defined by program expectations.Links to an external site.
   1. Cite a scholarly source in the initial post.
   2. Cite a scholarly source in one faculty response post.
   3. Cite a scholarly source in one peer post.
   4. Accurately analyze, synthesize, and/or apply principles from evidence with no more than one short quote (15 words or less) for the week.
   5. Include a minimum of two different scholarly sources per week. Cite all refer

Solution:

My current practicum site is a primary care office. We care for adult patients aged 18 years and above. We offer a wide range of services including assessment, diagnostics, treatment, health promotion and maintenance, disease prevention, etc.

One of the mental health screening tools used in our healthcare setting is the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), a self-assessment tool used to assist healthcare professionals in screening, diagnosing, and monitoring the severity of depression in individuals (Costantini et al., 2021). It includes nine questions in different depressive based on the diagnostic criteria for major….  click  for full purchase