Do a usual history and for the social history part, do a HEADDRESS assessment. NB: HEADDRESS is for teenagers, not kids who are younger.
H – Home: Tell me, where is home? What is home like? Who lives at home? How does everyone get along? What do you argue about? Family members – ages, occupations/education, health status, substance abuse. Is home safe?
E – Education: What grades are you getting?
A – Activities: What do you do when you are not in school? Extracurricular activities? These include work (employment, above), gangs, friends, playing sports, etc.
D – Diet: Do you have concerns about your weight/shape? Have you tried to change your weight/shape in any way? (dieting/exercise). Look for the presence of bingeing/purging behaviors, use of diuretics/laxatives. Tell me what you eat/drink in an average day… ~20% of teens are on a diet at any one time, up to 66% have tried to lose weight in the past. Use BMI curves to estimate ‘healthy weight’ for teen based on height.
D – Drugs, alcohol, smoking: Do you use any illicit drugs? Drink alcohol? Smoke?
R – Rest and leisure.
E – Employment (The first E is education, the second is employment because education comes first. Employment only happens when they are much older.]
S – Sex (Sexuality & Sexual Activity): Use of birth control, STDs, menstrual period, etc.
S – Suicidal or homicidal? Screen for depression with SIG – E – CAPS
I came up with HEADDRESS by modifying the existing acronym HEADS.