[Health experience of depressive adolescents: reflected from Newman's praxis methodology].

PURPOSE Guided by Newman's theory of health as expanding consciousness, this study was done to explore the health experience of adolescents having depression. METHODS The researcher engaged in six to eight in-depth interviews with six adolescents. To begin the dialog, the researcher asked each participant to recount the first important memory he/she had. All the narrative and diagram sharing between the researcher and participants were summarized according to recognized patterns and later elaborated in following interviews based on Newman's praxis methodology. RESULTS The significant individual pattern of early health experience was during the binding stage. At the turning point, individual patterns for participants revealed a personal journey of self-discovery and then emergence of reflecting behaviors. After the turning point, the participants changed as they evolved from the initial period of disruption and disorganization to organization at a higher level. The results suggest that adolescents who are depressive find new ways of relating to friends, family, healthcare providers, and the community by expanding their consciousness. CONCLUSION Newman's praxis methodology is a good way of helping and studying adolescents with depression because it emphasizes participant-nurse/researcher partnership and pattern recognition as nursing practice.