MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. Which statement by the nurse is most appropriate to a 15-year-old adolescent
whose friend has mentioned suicide?
a. Tell your friend to come to the clinic immediately.
b. You need to gather details about your friends suicide plan.
c. Your friends threat needs to be taken seriously and immediate help for
your friend is important.
d. If your friend mentions suicide a second time, you will want to get your
friend some help.
ANS: C
Suicide is the third most common cause of death among American
adolescents. A suicide threat from an adolescent serves as a dramatic message
to others and should be taken seriously. Adolescents at risk should be targeted
for supportive guidance and counseling before a crisis occurs. Instructing a
15-year-old adolescent to tell a friend to come to the clinic immediately
provides the teen with limited information and does not address the concern.
It is important to determine whether a person threatening suicide has a plan of
action; however, the best information for the 15-year-old adolescent to have
is that all threats of suicide should be taken seriously and immediate help is
important. It is imperative that help is provided immediately for a teenager
who is talking about suicide. Waiting until the teen discusses it a second time
may be too late.
2. When planning care for adolescents, the nurse should:
, a. teach parents first, and they, in turn, will teach the teenager.
b. provide information for their long-term health needs because teenagers
respond best to long- range planning.
c. maintain the parents role by providing explanations for treatment and
procedures to the parents only.
d. give information privately to adolescents about how they can manage the
specific problems that they identify.
ANS: D
Problems that teenagers identify and are interested in are typically the
problems that they are the most willing to address. Confidentiality is
important to adolescents. Adolescents prefer to confer privately (without
parents) with the nurse and healthcare provider. Teenagers are socially and
cognitively at the developmental stage where the healthcare provider can
teach them and can receive explanations about healthcare directly from the
nurse. Teenagers are more interested in immediate healthcare needs than in
long-term needs.
3. A 17-year-old adolescent tells the nurse that he is not having sex because it
would make his parents very angry. This response indicates that the adolescent
has a developmental lag in which area?
a. Cognitive development
b. Moral development
c. Psychosocial development
d. Psychosexual development
ANS: B