Survey finds teenagers to be most vulnerable to mental illness

PUTRAJAYA: The 2015 National Health and Morbidity Survey has found that teenagers are the most vulnerable group suffering from mental illness including depression.
Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr S. Subramaniam said the survey found that the cause was due to financial crisis, unemployment, work stress, family and relationship, substance abuse, and social environment issues.
He also singled out drug abuse, saying that synthetic drugs available these days are stronger but cause long lasting brain damage.
The survey also revealed that one out of three Malaysians above 16 years old suffers from mental illness including depression, meaning that 29.2% or about 4.2 million of the population have mental issues.
Subramanian said: "At first when I saw the data, I couldn't believe it myself. Then we reviewed how the survey was done and looked at the data again. It was accurate."
He said while depression is one of the most common illness found in the survey, hereditary mental illnesses were also included.
Subramaniam called on the ministry's mental health division to work with other organisations at the grassroots to help curb the rise in mental illness.
"The NGOs, religious bodies, or women groups can have programmes with our agencies to train them to better deal with mental illness," he said, adding the worrying aspect is that the nation only has one clinical psychologist per 100,000 patients.
"This is not enough even though our mental health services has improved leaps and bounds in recent years. Decades ago there was only two or three governmental hospitals treating mental illness. Now we have 48 hospitals," he added.
He said the ministry is working with the Education Ministry to churn out more clinical psychologists.
On the zika virus, he said there are no new cases and safety protocols have been put in place at blood banks to prevent contamination and spread.