This document presents two viewpoints on whether schools should screen children and teenagers for signs of mental illness and suicidal tendencies. Viewpoint 1 argues that screening can help identify at-risk youth and improve care, while opponents worry about overdiagnosis. Viewpoint 2 asserts that misdiagnoses are common since sadness is normal for teens, and inaccurate diagnoses can negatively impact teens and increase unnecessary treatment. The reflection considers both perspectives and concludes that focusing on improving care for diagnosed teens, rather than widespread screening, may be best to avoid potential harms of misdiagnosis.

1. Ethical Viewpoints Assignment
Research Question
Should schools screen children and teenagers for signs of
mental illness and suicidal tendencies?
Viewpoint 1
Mental health screening can help professionals and parents
identify children at risk for depression and suicidal urges.
Direct Quotations
· “An estimated 11.4% of the U.S. adolescents, or about 2.8
million people, had at least one “major depressive episode” in a
12-month period, according to the 2014 National Survey on
Drug Use and Health.”
· “Worrisome symptoms may be attributed to normal stresses of
adolescence or “typical” teen mood swings, when in reality they
signify suffering that is neither normal nor typical. As a result,
many depressed teens struggle with suffering that can lead to
poorer physical health, school failure, social difficulties and,
for some, suicide.”
· “Opponents of screening are wary of over diagnosis and
overtreatment. We must carefully distinguish clinical depression
from normal sadness and avoid medicalizing and medicating the
turbulence of adolescence. Not all depressed teens need
medication. Parents and providers must be guided by the
specific experiences of each teen, not by media messages or
overly simplistic conceptualizations of sadness and stress.”
· “Adolescents often have difficulty articulating suffering,
particularly if it involves fear and stigmatization. Even in
clinical settings they may feel incapable of broaching the
subject themselves. It is up to clinicians to ask the right
questions, and routine screening can pave the way for these
crucial conversations.”
· “We have integrated medical and mental-health care more

2. closely and have moved away from the artificial segmentation
of emotional and physical health. Fewer teens suffer in silence,
and the care they receive is continually improving, all because
we started asking these important questions.”
T.R.A.P. Evaluation
T: This article was published on April 11, 2016 in the Wall
Street Journal, which is within the past three years.
R: There is a lot of stigma surrounding the issue of mental
health but in this article, the research presented encourages
universal screening for early signs of depression in order to
start treatment in adolescents that would greatly benefit from it.
The number of people who encounter impactful depressive
incidents is only increasing with time according to the
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Within the number of adolescents who go through the effects of
depression, less than 50% are correctly diagnosed since most of
their symptoms are thought to be typical behavior for a moody
teen thus, it leads to some teenagers’ symptoms to progress and
sometimes even lead to suicide. There is the fear of over
diagnosing and over treatment, but it is believed that
differentiating clinical depression from typical sorrow will help
avoid resorting to medicalizing the anguish of these teens since
not all instances of depression require medication. Most
adolescents struggle with communicating their suffering
effectively and that is why asking the right questions and
establishing routine screening is up to the clinicians in order to
start having clear communication that leads to crucial
consultations. Less and less teens are suffering in solitary and
the care they receive is only going to continue to improve just
because people started asking these critical questions.
A: The experts in this article are Richard J. Chung, the
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration,
and the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force and the American
Academy of Pediatrics
P: According to a 2014 survey, the number of teenagers who

3. experience major depressive incidents has been increasing in
these past years. There are two methods for screening that have
been proven effective in not over diagnosing and making sure to
catch overlooked symptoms as well as recognizing false alarms.
MLA Citation:
Chung, Richard J., and Allen Frances. "Should all Teens be
Screened for Depression?" Wall Street Journal, 11 Apr, 2016,
pp. R.5, SIRS Issues Researcher, https://sks-sirs-
com.dcccd.idm.oclc.org.
Viewpoint 2No: Misdiagnoses Are All Too Common--And All
Too Damaging
Direct Quotations:
· “For one thing, no screening method is discriminating enough
to distinguish between normal sadness, which is very common
in teens, and clinical depression, which is very rare”
· “Many (probably most) teens deemed depressed by general
screening will have normal sadness or transient and self-limited
mild depression, not requiring diagnosis or treatment”
· “Mislabeling a teen as mentally ill can carry huge
consequences. It changes the way he sees himself and how
others see him. An accurate diagnosis provides enough
treatment benefit to counterbalance the harms of stigma, but an
inaccurate one harms without helping.”
· “Routine screening also puts pressure on primary-care doctors,
who don't have the time or training to distinguish depression
from other possible diagnoses. As a result, they are quick to
overprescribe antidepressants”
· “Screening would worsen the already-existing cruel paradox
that we massively over treat people who are essentially well,
while we shamefully neglect the people who are really sick
(600,000 of whom are homeless or in jail for lack of adequate
community services).”

4. T.R.A.P. Evaluation
T: This article was published on April 11, 2016 in the Wall
Street Journal, which is within the past three years.
R: It is believed that in teens, clinical depression is harder to
tell apart from the normal sadness teenagers experience. Most
adolescents go through mild depression which does not require
a diagnosis or medical treatment. Teenagers symptoms differ
week to week which is why it is tough to accurately diagnose
them and misdiagnosing them can lead to scrutiny in how they
view themselves or how others view them. Having to regularly
screen so many adolescents may lead primary-care doctors to
over prescribe antidepressants since they don’t have the
extensive training in telling apart depression from other mental
health diagnosis.
A: The experts mentioned in this article include Allen Frances,
a professor and chairman of the department of psychiatry and
behavioral sciences of Duke School of Medicine.
P: According to this article, after an update of the Diagnostic
and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which combined
two very different types of depression, the amount of people on
antidepressants have significantly increased. The amount of
Americans on antidepressants has increased which has been
influenced by the pharmaceutical companies exploiting the new
updated loose definition of what depression is.
MLA Citation:
Chung, R. J., & Frances, A. (2016, 11 Apr). Should all teens be
screened for depression? Wall Street Journal Retrieved
from https://sks-sirs-com.dcccd.idm.oclc.org
Reflection:
Having gone through many years of depression, I started out
agreeing with the topic that schools should help in the screening
of mental health tendencies in teenagers because I felt that I
could have been helped sooner in my journey. After completing
this assignment, my opinions have definitely shifted. I still

5. agree that teens who suffer with mental and emotional health
should be helped but screening all teenagers in school, who
moods change daily and adapt to situations, would lead to
tremendous amounts of misdiagnoses and would lead to further
stigma of being diagnosed with depression, anxiety, or other
mental health diagnosis. What I learned about myself through
this research is, although it sounded amazing to try to help
everyone, I didn’t stop to think about the negative repercussions
that may come about so I learned that sometimes it is best to
slow down and not just be driven by the “big picture”. I
completely understand the opposing side because I now
understand how misdiagnosing teenagers could have severe
consequences and that screening teenagers in school would only
make things worse since our mental health department is
already well under funded and would make screening less
affective. I agree with them that we should focus on bettering
the teenagers who have already been properly diagnosed and
their care before we can think about the big picture of helping
screen all teenagers. I think a question that would generate
deeper thinking about this subject would be, “Should parents be
screened before having children and take mental/emotional
health courses?” because I feel like it is unfair to leave it up to
teenagers to deal with repercussions of horrible communications
between parents. If parents were educated in mental and
emotional health, I feel that we could avoid a lot of the events
that lead to teenagers being depressed.
Ethical Viewpoints Assignment - Worksheet
Research Question
See Step 1: Find it! (The research question for your topic goes
here.)
Viewpoint 1
See Step 1: Find it! (The first viewpoint for your topic goes
here.)
Direct Quotations
See Step 2: Quote it! (Your direct quotes from the Viewpoint 1

6. article go here. Include quotation marks.)
T.R.A.P. Evaluation
See Step 3: Evaluate it! (Answer the TRAP questions to
evaluate your article.)
MLA Citation
See Step 4: Cite it! (Your MLA citation for the Viewpoint 1
article goes here.)
Viewpoint 2
See Step 1: Find it! (The second viewpoint for your topic goes
here.)
Direct Quotations
See Step 2: Quote it! (Your direct quotes from the Viewpoint 2
article go here. Include quotation marks.)
T.R.A.P. Evaluation
See Step 3: Evaluate it! (Answer the TRAP questions to
evaluate your article.)
MLA Citation
See Step 4: Cite it! (Your MLA citation for the Viewpoint 2
article goes here.)
Reflection
See Step 5: Reflect on it! (Your assignment reflection goes
here.)