Common Labs help

Nurses General Nursing

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I am in nursing school writing a paper on a suicidal 16 year old girl - she was prescribed 100mg sertaline and is in a psych unit first day- part of the paper includes medical manangement I have to include

Common labs and dx tests and

Medical/ surgical treatment

The only thing I can come up w/ are urinalysis for pregnancy, drugs and alcohol what other kinds of labs would be run or medical management issues would she have?

Thanks for your help!

Specializes in Psych, ER, Resp/Med, LTC, Education.

TSH...for sure. can explain new depression so you should always rule out. Some docs like to do a CBC with diff to be sure there is no infections, check liver funtion, etc. for a baseline.

Specializes in Psych, ER, Resp/Med, LTC, Education.

Oh and.....BTW...They need to do a chem 14 or 20 to get the liver fx.....as oppose to a 7. This will give you the electrolytes, liver fx, renal fx, etc.....and too if she is depressed and not been eating/drinking well they can see how her lytes are and if she is dehydrated.

Specializes in LTC, Memory loss, PDN.

CBC w. diff and chem 14 - can't go wrong there, I'd like to see albumin level.

Specializes in school nursing, ortho, trauma.

I'd run all those and depending on the area she lives in maybe even a Lyme titer - run it if it is a hot bed for lyme disease. That can cause encephalopathy which may trigger suicidal ideations.

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