Phenomenon and Conceptualization

Client experiencing depression

Depression is a common and highly increasing mystery whose cause is not properly understood. I can conceptualize depression as a mix of central nervous system disorders that commonly lead to a decrease in an individual’s mood and elevated pursuit for pleasurable activities. I can associate depression with loss-related syndromes, endocrine dysfunction, genetic disorder, organic brain damage, or adverse drug effects or reactions. (J Licinio, 2002) Depression can be understood to present with symptoms such as decreased attention and concentration, decreased mood, crying spells, or general sadness, fatigue, and passive suicidal ideation. A person who presents with depressive symptoms after stroke does not have the same disease as someone who is only depressed in a period of postpartum that is why I would prefer to conceptualize depression as a group of diseases with common clinical symptoms. It is not a single disease but multiple illnesses that present in the same way. Depression can, however, be diagnosed using various tools and be properly managed or treated.

Three questions that can be used to measure depressive phenomenon include:

• What is the client’s level of interest or pleasure in doing things?
• Does the client have little energy or feel tired?
• Does the client have trouble sleeping, falling asleep, or sleeping too much?

These three questions operationalize or define the depressive phenomenon because they are based on the classical symptoms of depression and, therefore, can be used as a measuring scale condition by allowing the client to provide an answer based on their feelings and personal assessment. The summation of the scales from the answers to these questions among other questions can provide the basis of a diagnosis of depression in patients.

Reliability – reliability is the degree to which the outcome or result of an assessment, calculation, measurement, or specification can be depended on to bear high levels of accuracy. The questions created can be relied on because they are purely based on the chief symptoms of depression.

Validity- validity is the degree or extent to which a conclusion, concept, assessment, or measurement is well-founded and accurately match the aspects in the real world. The validity of the questions can be established by ensuring the questions are evidence-based.

Measurement plan to assess depression

The measurement plan to assess depression will involve using the nine depression symptoms as evaluation questions. This would involve assessing depressed mood, appetite disturbance, sleep disturbance, loss of energy, difficulty concentrating, and feelings of worthlessness, loss of interest, psychomotor retardation, and suicidal thoughts. The clients provide their response on a scale of 0 to 10 where 10 represent most depressed while 0 least depressed. Summation of individual measures and comparison with geriatric depression scale. (J. Ellen Anderson, 2002)

The methodology of collecting data.

The methodology that can be used to collect data is the use of a questionnaire in which the clients provide answers to the depression evaluation questions on a scale of 0-10

Advantages of a questionnaire

The use of questionnaires is inexpensive and practical, results that are scalable and comparable can be obtained fast and easily analyzed. Questionnaires create respondents anonymity and the data obtained can be considered to be valid, standardized, and reliable.

Disadvantages of a questionnaire

The disadvantages of the questionnaire can include skipping of questions, dishonest answers, hidden agendas, lack of personalization, analysis issues, and lack of nuance, interpretation issues, survey fatigue, accessibility issues, and unconscientious responses.