Signs of Depression or Anxiety in Children (Nursing)

00:01 Now I would like to just talk a little bit about the presentation of the different diagnoses.

00:09 So if we have depression, a child who is experiencing depression, what are we going to see with the child who is depressed? Well, a child who is depressed is not going to be running around smiling, usually.

00:24 Usually, you're going to see a child who has the collapse of the body, doesn't have eye contact, is going to, when they look up at you, you almost see that sense.

00:39 And you can almost palpate that sense of hopelessness, when you say things will get better, let me help.

00:46 And they go, it's not going to help.

00:50 They may be irritable, because they know nothing is ever going to get better.

00:55 That is depression, the pervasive idea that if you can't make it better, why should I go out and do something that's fun, it's only going to end up badly for me.

01:08 So that child will not be participating as other children are.

01:12 And then we might see the child as the depression increases, either eating more, or eating less, either sleeping more, or actually not being able to sleep because of those ideas, those thoughts that are really pervasive.

01:31 And their energy, we see a real drop in energy in children who have depression.

01:41 It's really hard for this child to pay attention.

01:45 And oftentimes, when that child is not paying attention, a parent, a significant other, a teacher, or even the nurse at the clinic, will say, listen to me, are you are you listening, which for a child who has depression, only exacerbates the fact of worthlessness that I can't even listen, but they have no energy.

02:11 So they feel useless.

02:14 They know they're guilty, and they feel worthless.

02:20 This is when we have to really worry about a child hurting themselves.

02:26 Practicing non-suicidal self injury where they might be cutting or burning, or scraping themselves, or suicidal thoughts, or actions.

02:40 We really want to be careful with that child.

02:43 If that child says, and I've heard this from children as young as six years old, I just wish I was dead.

02:52 But child says that, it's time to actually stop and say, what does that mean? Do you want to kill yourself? Do you want to die? That child needs to be able to get help.

03:06 And that is a call for help.

03:09 Too often a parent will say oh, he says that all the time.

03:13 But when I hear a child say I wish I was dead.

03:17 I usually say to them, does anybody else in your family ever say that? And usually they say, oh, my mother or my father? Or my sister says that all the time? Or they say, yeah, it's much easier when you're dead.

03:29 My grandmother died.

03:30 And she doesn't have any of these problems.

03:34 Well, this is this is a real call for help.

03:36 And this is an emergency situation.

03:40 You don't leave that child alone.

03:43 And you get that child referred to help immediately.

03:49 Now we're going to look at anxiety, also very prevalent in children.

03:54 What do we see when we have a child who has anxiety? Oftentimes we see real fear on separation, the child will be hiding, they won't want to look at you.

04:05 They start picking up their hands, their face.

04:10 And they can't sit still.

04:12 Because they have this terrible fear on separation.

04:16 They might have a fear of a specific thing, or a situation that they think something is going to happen, and they can't express it.

04:27 But they can't breathe right there.

04:30 They're always, they're always kind of looking around like they're waiting for the bad thing to happen and you see it in their face.

04:40 Sometimes they can become very aggressive.

04:44 But oftentimes we see that they become incredibly quiet and shy because their comfort level has changed.

04:52 And so their behaviours are changing along with their comfort level.

04:58 If you ask them what's wrong, they might say, Oh, my heart is pounding, I can't stop my heart from pounding or I feel so dizzy.

05:08 They might actually make you laugh.

05:10 They might go, oh, I'm so shaky. I'm so shaky. I'm so shaky.

05:15 Listen to them.

05:17 And don't think it's cute because if they feel shaky inside, it might be their anxiety.

05:24 Listen to how they express themselves.

05:26 If you see a child who is sweating, and you say, are you okay? And they say, oh, it's really hard to breathe? Well, it's difficult to be able to determine whether a child is having anxiety, whether the child's having a panic attack, whether the child is having heart disease, whether they're having an asthma attack.

05:47 So this is that moment where we want to make sure that we are being careful not to assign something to a person symptoms without doing a full investigation on why that is happening.