Approaches To Treatment

The Assignment

Examine Case Study: An African American Child Suffering From Depression. You will be asked to make three decisions concerning the medication to prescribe to this client. Be sure to consider factors that might impact the client’s pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic processes.

• At each decision point stop to complete the following:
  • Decision #1
    • Which decision did you select?
    • Why did you select this decision? Support your response with strong scientific evidence and references.  Why did you NOT select the other treatment options available?  Again, provide STRONG scientific evidence.  Clinical studies or treatment guidelines are a good place to start!
    • What were you hoping to achieve by making this decision? Support your response with evidence and references to the Learning Resources.
    • What ethical considerations impacted your treatment plan and communication plan with the patient?
  • Decision #2
    • Why did you select this decision? Support your response with strong scientific evidence and references.  Why did you NOT select the other treatment options available?  Again, provide STRONG scientific evidence.  Clinical studies or treatment guidelines are a good place to start!
    • What were you hoping to achieve by making this decision? Support your response with evidence and references to the Learning Resources.
    • What ethical considerations impacted your treatment plan and communication plan with the patient?
  • Decision #3
    • Why did you select this decision? Support your response with strong scientific evidence and references.  Why did you NOT select the other treatment options available?  Again, provide STRONG scientific evidence.  Clinical studies or treatment guidelines are a good place to start!
    • What were you hoping to achieve by making this decision? Support your response with evidence and references to the Learning Resources.
    • What ethical considerations impacted your treatment plan and communication plan with the patient?

Conclusion (1 page)

Summarize your recommendations on the treatment options you selected for this patient. Be sure to justify your recommendations and support your response with clinically relevant and patient-specific resources, including the primary literature.

After writing up your rationale at each decision point, I would ask yourself the following questions:

• Have I provided clinical data from a meta-analysis, case report or clinical trial to support the drug I picked being safe, efficacious and the best choice for this patient?
• Have I provided clinical data, etc. to support a clear rationale as to why the other treatment options are NOT optimal?
• Is the focus of my discussion on mechanism of action and receptors/neurotransmitters that the drug acts on? If the answer is YES, you should consider doing additional research to address the above two questions
• Also include how ethical considerations might impact your treatment plan and communication with clients.

**RUN THROUGH THE DECISION TREE ONCE ONLY**

The rubric, as I interpret it, suggests 5 references cited with every assignment for full credit on this portion (20 points).  References used for your introductory paragraph, ethical considerations or conclusion do not count towards the 5 references required.  As a general rule of thumb, I would encourage you to reference AT LEAST two sources (not including the textbook) for each decision point – this will result in 6 references total for your clinical decision making. Good luck!!