1. GROWTH, DEVELOPMENT
AND HEALTH PROMOTION
OF YOUNG ADULTS
Nelia B. Perez RN, MSN
PCU - MAN

2. Age alone is not a good criterion for
determining when young
adulthood begins. Maturity has
been identified as the major
criterion of young adulthood.

3. Behaviors that reflect maturity are:
1. A sense of responsibility: The person
can be relied upon to carry out a
defined role.
2. Adequate impulse control: Impulse can
be channeled into constructive
behavior.
3. Tolerance of frustration: Confident of
ability to deal with stress & can sacrifice
immediate pleasure for long term gain.

4. 4. Ability to plan: Able to look to the
future & set goal & implement
plans.
5. Ability to accept differences in
others: Has respect for
individuality.
6. Capacity for intimacy: Has the
ability to trust another human being
& share life with others.
7. Movement toward development of
own potential: Has confidence in
self & can reach out & take risks.

5. Developmental Tasks of Early
Adulthood:
1. Becoming independent from parent.
2. Family formation.
3. Choosing & beginning a career.
4. Developing a personal style in living.
5. Establishing friendship & social network.

6. 6. Developing parenting behaviors.
7. Accepting civic responsibilities &
becoming citizen & choosing
activities in social & community
organizations.
8. Implementing personal values on
home, work & community settings.

7. The Young Adult:
Twenty to Forty Years
• Physical Development
•
•
•
Growth has generally stopped, but
calcium and regular weight-bearing
exercise are still required.
Visual acuity begins to decline,
especially depth perception.
Hearing loss may be noted, although
it can begin as early as age 14.

8. Physiological Growth and
Development
• Few maturational changes
• Experience severe illness
less
• Physical changes occur as
middle age approaches
• Personal life-style
assessment

9. Physical Growth in Young
Adult:
•
Young adulthood is the time when the
physical capacity of every system of the
body peaks. Most physiologic function
reach maximum levels during the middle
twenties, there after, decline is so
gradual as to be difficult to detect until
middle age.
•
The skeletal differences between men &
women are more pronounced during this
range of years than at any other time
during the life span.

10. • Both muscle tone & muscle strength
appear o peak between 20-30 years,
after this age there is a gradual
decrease in the power & speed of
muscular contractions.
• The women's menstrual cycle is
regular & sexual organs are mature to
cope with child bearing.

11. • The man's sexual maturity reached on
adolescence remains at a peak &
sexual urge remain high throughout
this period.
• Nutritional needs are for maintains &
repair & not for growth.
Therefore, weight control becomes a
problem for many young adults
especially for those who continue to
consume food as they did during
adolescent.

12. The Young Adult:
Twenty to Forty Years (cont.)
• Intellectual-Cognitive Development
•
•
Knowledge acquired through both
formal training and on-the-job
training.
Critical thinking and reasoning skills
are refined.

13. Cognitive Development of Young Adults
• Critical thinking abilities increase
with experiences
• Develop problem solving skills
• Identify occupation

14. Cognitive Development:
• The young adult years are time of optimal
cognitive functioning. The individual is
engaged in the establishment of new skills
& knowledge.
• Cognitive functioning at the level of formal
operations & the capacity for abstract
thinking continue.
• There is an excellent ability to acquire &
use knowledge & engage in problem
solving.
• For many, education continues during the
early years of young adulthood (college)
graduate, school, on the job training & (or
continue education).

15. The Young Adult:
Twenty to Forty Years (cont.)
• Psycho-Emotional Development
•
Long-lasting relationships are
established.
•
Careers can lead to stress and
anxiety.

16. The Young Adult:
Twenty to Forty Years (cont.)
• Social Development
•
Young adults establish
careers, marriages, families, and
homes.
•
Friendships and relationships may be
based more on interests than age.
•
Contributing to the community becomes
important.

17. Psychosocial Development:
Young adulthood is a time when many
difficult decisions need to made. These
decisions will affect the person for the rest
of his life they make decision for
themselves, which influence their life-style
in their future. They must make choices
about: Education, occupation, to marry or
remain single, starting a home, children
rearing, forming new friendships, &
assuming certain community activities.
These developmental tasks are also
includes:

18. 1. Breaking away from the family:
This doesn't mean separation, but a
changing in the relationship with the
family. These changes are:
A. External changes: Becoming
financially independent & evolving
new roles & living arrangements.
B. Internal changes: Increasing
Psychological independence.

19. 2. Establishing a sense of
intimacy: Intimacy VS
Isolation:
Intimacy is defined as the ability to
experience an open, supportive, tender
relationship with another person without
fear of losing one's own identity in the
process.
Establishing intimate relationship is the
capacity to commit oneself to partnership
& to develop the ethical strength by such
commitments ever though they may call
for significant sacrifices. Therefore, the
young adult who attains intimacy is
manifested through:

20. • The ability to share personal identity with
another without losing one's own unique
identity. The desired outcome is mutual
satisfaction & support.
• Heterosexual marriage relationship require a
mutuality with a loved partner with whom one
is welling & able to share the cycle of work,
family life & recreation.
• Inability to resolve conflicts in intimate
relationships results in the "isolation" of the
young adult, which characterized by
competitiveness, distance, egocentricity &
avoidance behaviors.

21. What help establishment
of intimacy?
• Marriage: In general, husbands
are more likely than wives to be
satisfied with the amount of
empathy and companionship in
their marriages.

22. • Work setting: is another common context
for the establishment of intimacy, affiliation
and close friendship are likely to develop
among coworkers. Co-workers may
express devotion to an older leader or
teacher. Through conversations,
conferences, or informal interaction coworkers can achieve an affectionate,
playful, and enriching relationship.
• Whether intimate relations are established
in the context of marriage, friendship, or
work, the atmosphere of romantic illusions
such as, ''Together we can conquer the
world'' often characterizes intimate
relationships.

23. Isolation:
The negative pole of the crisis of early
adulthood is isolation.
As social beings, people have a deep need
for a sense of connection and belonging.
Isolation and the accompanying feeling of
being unable to experience
intersubjectivity or shared meaning, is a
major source of psychological distress.

24. The Obstacles to Attainment of an
Intimate Relationship are:
o Some arise from childhood experiences of, shame,
guilt, inferiority, or alienation, which undermine the
achievement of personal identity.
o Others result from incompatibility between
partners.
o These obstacles may be embedded in the
socialization process as children learn distinct
gender roles that introduce antagonism between
males and females and foster interpersonal styles
that stand in the way of forming open, caring
interpersonal relationships.
o There are some themes that illustrate experiences
of isolation:

25. Loneliness:
Feeling of loneliness can be separated into
three categories: transient, situational
and chronic.
A. Transient loneliness: lasts a short time
and passes, as when you hear a song or
an expression that reminds you of
someone you love who is far away.
B. Situational loneliness: accompanies a
sudden loss or a move to a new city.

26. Chronic loneliness:
C.
lasts a long time and cannot be linked to a
specific stressor.
• Chronically lonely people may have an
average number of social contacts, but they
do not achieve the desired level of intimacy in
these interactions.
• Many chronically lonely people are highly
anxious about all types of social activities.
• People, who have higher levels of social
skills, including friendliness, communication
skills, appropriate nonverbal behavior, and
appropriate responses to others, have more
adequate social support systems and lower
levels of loneliness.

27. Depression:
Isolation may be a cause as
well as a consequence of
depression.
For some women, clinical
depression appears to be
linked to an orientation toward
intimacy in which the self is
systematically inhibited and
devalued.

28. 3. Making commitment to a
career & job satisfaction
One's occupation is the major determinant of
one's level of prestige & amount of
income. Work provides a sense of
personal worth, a level of recognition by
others, a feeling of individuality, growth &
security, it depends upon:

29. • Personality factors abilities &interest
influence vocational choice.
• Parenteral encouragement is an important
factor in the choice of career especially if
the parent experiences job satisfaction &
talks about job responsibilities.
• The socio-economic status of the family
also tends to influence the young adult
choice of a career i.e. the family's ability to
pay for schooling, the individual desire to
maintain the same socio-economic level
as his parent.

30. • Job satisfaction has been
recognized to be a result of
friendly co-workers, interesting
work, a chance to use one's
mind, work results that one's can
see, a chance to develop skills &
abilities, career promotion & good
pay.
• Satisfaction with job leads to a
feeling of fulfillment, while
frustration with work leads to
depression.

31. 4.
Establishing a set of values:
• The young adult analyze & evaluate the set of
values that has been internalized through
childhood & adolescence under the direction
of adults.
• Most young adult are confused about values.
They are idealistic but they find so many
contradictory values in society. (e.g. they have
been taught to respect law & be honest, yet
they see cheating & stealing).
• Many young adult are not in agreement with
the policies & values of the society, they want
to change them & reject the lifestyle imposed
upon them by their elders.

32. 5.
Family Formation:
• Marriage & family formation will take time from
the couple to learn to adjust to each other.
• The couple's success in adjustment requires an
openness of communication & a willingness to
learn.
• Each spouse must be able to let the other know
what is satisfying & not satisfying. This process
involves mutual respects for the other's likes &
dislikes as well as a willingness to accommodate
to the other's needs.

33. • Conflicts in marriage are inevitable.
Resoling conflicts depends on the
communication pattern & problem solving
abilities developed by the couples to deal
with the differences between them.
• Parenting: the arrival of a child is usually a
happy event in the life of a couple, but it
requires a major re-adjustment to the family
life & couples' role.
• The role of the parents is very demanding &
requires changes in relationships in time
commitments within & outside the home.

34. 6.
Establishing a social
network:
• Friends are important as they are sources
of emotional support, stabilizers of selfimage & facilitators of integration with
society.
• During young adulthood many individuals
begin to establish connections with various
organization in the community e.g.
volunteer work, exercise clubs, social
work. According to their interests & belief
system.
• These group memberships are providing
an outlet for self-expression. Maintaining a
healthy balance within various group
membership & time for self- orientation is
important for young adults.

35. Moral Development:
Young adult who have mastered the
previous stages of moral development
now enter the postconventional level.
The person is able to separate self form
the expectations and rules of others
and to define morality in terms of
personal principles. When an individual
perceives a conflict with society's rules
or laws, he judges according to his own
principles. This type of reasoning is
called principled reasoning. For
example, an individual may
intentionally break the law and join a
protest group to stop hunters from
killing wild animals, believing that the
principle of conservation of wildlife
justifies the protest action.

36. Health Promotion of
Young Adult
Health needs of young adult are varies
according to the role played by each
one, in general, the following:

37. 1.
Family life education:
A.
B.
C.
To build an attitude in young adults
as regard their sexual responsibilities
& show clearly the ethical, moral &
religious basis of sexuality.
To enable families to understand the
relation that exists between man &
wife & that between patents & their
children.
To enable families & young adults to
recognize the health needs
(physical, mental, social & emotional)
of human being at different phases of
development.

38. 2. Premarital examination &
genetic counseling:
• Premarital examination
provides a good chance
for health education, case
finding & provides useful
health data about young
adults.

39. Health Concerns/ Risk Factors for
the Young Adult
• Health Risks
•
•
•
•
•
Violence
Substance Abuse
Unwanted pregnancies
STDs
Occupational, environmental risk factors
• Lifestyle Concerns
•
•
•
•
•
•
Smoking
Stress
Exercise patterns
Personal hygiene
Familial history
Infertility

40. Childbearing Family
• Pregnant woman’s body undergoes
physical changes (pg.225)
• Cognitive changes
• Temporary sensory changes
• Educational needs
• Psychosocial changes
•
•
•
•
•
Body Image
Role changes
Sexuality
Coping mechanisms
Stresses

41. The Young Adult:
Twenty to Forty Years (cont.)
• Aspects of Care
•
Weight-bearing and aerobic exercise
should be continued to reduce and
prevent bone loss.
•
A balanced nutritional plan should be
in place.
•
The need for social contact
continues, and may be fulfilled through
church, school, and community
activities.

42. The Young Adult:
Twenty to Forty Years (cont.)
•
•
•
Stress management techniques are
essential.
Regular health checkups are important
for preventive maintenance.
Regular dental care is
necessary, including cleaning and
checkups twice a year.