KUALA LUMPUR – There has been an uptick of cases involving suicidal ideation and attempts involving teenagers in this country from 2012 to 2022, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.
Suicidal ideation is defined as thoughts or ideas centred around death or suicide, whereas suicidal attempts are attempts to harm oneself with the intention to end one’s life.
According to Deputy Health Minister Datuk Lukanisman Awang Sauni, the latest National Health and Morbidity Survey (NHMS) show that cases of suicidal ideation saw an increase of 5.2% from 7.9% in 2012 to 13.1% in 2022.
Meanwhile, cases of suicide plans have seen a 3.6% increase from 6.4% in 2012 to 10% in 2022, and cases of suicide attempts have seen a 2.7% increase from 6.8% in 2012 to 9.5% in 2022.
“The NHMS report also highlighted an increase in mental health problems among school and higher education institution students which involve children, teenagers and youth – from 7.9% or 424,000 people in 2019 to 16.5% of 922,318 people in 2023.
“This means that there has been a two-fold increase (in these cases) based on the information obtained from the NHMS report,” said Lukanisman.
He was responding to Syed Ibrahim Syed Noh (Ledang-PH), who asked MoH to provide statistics on mental health cases involving school and higher education institution students and evidence-based policies undertaken by the ministry in dealing with this issue.
On the evidence-based policy, Lukanisman said that the ministry has carried out initiatives such as establishing the National Centre of Excellence for Mental Health in Cyberjaya and developing a Children and Teenagers Mental Health Action Plan through a collaboration with the World Health Organisation and Unicef, where the plan is expected to the launched next year.
Lukanisman also said that the ministry has prepared Talian Heal 15555, which is a mental health crisis assistance hotline, and programmes in schools such as Program Minda Sihat Sekolah through collaboration with the Education Ministry (MoE) – which involves 2,456 secondary schools and 7,776 primary schools.
Additionally, the ministry also collaborated with the Youth and Sports Ministry as well as Higher Education Ministry to conduct programmes and with NGOs to conduct mental health advocacy programmes.
Reset to a preventative approach
Syed Ibrahim, in a supplementary question, asked Lukanisman whether MoH plans to reset its approach to dealing with mental health cases to be more preventative in nature.
The PKR lawmaker also asked whether the ministry would come up with innovative solutions given the youths’ preference to use gadgets, as well as introducing “smart investments” in the national budget where community-based mental health are given allocations, citing Peru and New Zealand as examples.
In response, the deputy minister said that the ministry does need such funding and investments, and is in the process of implementing community-based mental healthcare by improving the ministry’s programmes such as MyChampion.
“We (MoH) would also like to collaborate with the private sectors, (especially) the big firms who see the importance of mental health as well as investment into it to generate productivity,” he added. – December 4, 2024
Those who would like to seek help can contact Befrienders Kuala Lumpur through their 24-hour hotline at 03-7627 2929 or contact Talian Heal (Health with Empathy and Love) at 15555