Chapter 3-

Nursing Adolescents

Why do adolescents think and behave the way they do?

You are encouraged to set yourself to be without distraction from your learning for the period of each lecture. For a self-paced lesson, a minimum of 15 minutes is recommended for each period. This is to enable you to adequately digest the instructions and content, to avoid misunderstanding and miscommunication, and to achieve meaningful learning.

The School of Health Sciences, Ngee Ann Polytechnic, Singapore

Chapter curated and authored by Jeremy Chavell Jordan OLIVEIRO
Jeremy_CJ_OLIVEIRO@np.edu.sg

Edited by: Yasmeen Shariff
Webpage Built by CHONG Ching Liang

Welcome to topic 3, which is all about - Adolescents. We share a similar belief with the World Health Organisation. The youth today who are healthy adolescents now, will grow up to be healthy adults in the future and this will bring about future generations of healthy if not healthier individuals. Adolescents are the greatest resource for any society to thrive, hence the reason why we would like to emphasize on this chapter.

What Do We Know About Sleep In Adolescence?

Most adolescents don't get enough sleep, usually because their schedules are overloaded or they spend too much time texting or chatting with friends until the wee hours of the morning. Others try to go to sleep early, but instead of getting much-needed rest, they lie awake for hours. We know that sleep is important, but do we know how important? This short video examines potential consequences of poor sleep on well-being and metabolic health in adolescents.

3.0 Chapter3stats_sleep.mp4

The above video was built based on statistics and information from this study here.

In order to understand adolescent health behaviours, you have to first understand how the adolescent brain functions. With that understanding, you can better appreciate the rationale behind the social choices that adolescents make.

In this next video, we look at the intriguing similarities between the processes of brain development and computer programming. This analogy helps us understand why toxic environmental factors like drugs, bullying, or negative health behaviours can have such a long-lasting impact on an adolescent's life; and can be used instead to empower them with the information they need to make better decisions. A lot of adolescent social and health behaviours are caused by strong biological influence. Having said that there are also psychological and social factors that have equal influence over their behaviours as well. Once again, remember that the youth today who are healthy adolescents now, will grow up to be healthy adults in the future and this will bring about future generations of healthy if not healthier individuals.

The above videos were created by the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

The above video is hosted by National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and can be found here.

Lesson Objectives

The key lesson from this section is to understand the psyche of an adolescent person. We have heard so much about adolescents and their attitude towards health and behaviours. Science has found the rationale behind why they think and behave the way they typically would, and it is not without good reasons. This is the reason why future healthcare professionals like yourself need to take an introductory course in behavioural sciences because combating an illness is not just about knowing the correct treatment but also understanding and learning about how your patients think.

Here are the areas covered in your learning journey for this week:

  1. The Adolescent Brain and Behaviour

  2. Theories of Social Perception and Social Cognition

  3. Carl Roger's Theory of Congruence/Incongruence

  • By the end of this week's lesson, you should understand adolescent behaviours from a scientific perspective through psychology.

  • Be able to understand what is perception, cognition, and congruence and how this shapes the way adolescents look at health and illness behaviour.

  • Learn to apply the Health Belief Model to understand patients' decisions that impact their health or illness.

References

National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA/NIH). (2019, March 11). Teen Brain Development. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpfnDijz2d8