Patient’s Risks and Information Needed to Understand the Child’s Health

The patient may be at risk of being underweight because he has anxiety. Chronic anxiety is a causal factor for being underweight. Koet et al. (2022) note that anxiety can result in metabolic changes, lowered food intake, changes in bowel functionalities, and enhanced body movements. All of these result in potential weight loss. The patient also lives with a roommate who has depression. Living with a depressed roommate may aggravate her anxiety and even predispose her to stress, which also contributes to weight loss.

Information on the child’s underlying illness is crucial to fully understand the child’s health. This will give an insight into somatic, cognitive, and behavioural issues that may be involved in the child’s manifestations. Information on the onset of her anxiety symptoms, what exacerbates her symptoms, the frequency of anxiety manifestations, and how her disease affects her functioning are all crucial.

When gathering this information, it is important to recognize apparent cultural diversification in healthcare. Maintaining sensitivity to cultural differences is thus necessary. In this regard, the language used to gather this information should be tailored toward the patient. Caregivers must also demonstrate empathy, have good listening skills, and be able to utilize non-verbal communication techniques. These will help them develop a good therapeutic relationship with the patient, facilitating good information flow from the patient to the caregivers.

Potential Questions

To find out more about the child’s history of anxiety, the potential questions to be asked include: When did the anxiety start, what triggers the patient’s anxiety attacks, and whether there is a family member who has a weight-related health issue? These questions may give an insight into the likelihood of the child developing a weight-related health issue. The child will be at high risk of being underweight if her anxiety is chronic and in the presence of a family history of being underweight or any other somatic illness predisposing individuals to be underweight.