VietNamNet Bridge – Up to 20 per cent of 10-16 year olds in Ha Noi showed signs of mental distress, a recent survey shows.

Hospital director Ngo Thanh Hoi said the ratio of mentally affected children was equal between the sexes.

The health issues included stress, anxiety, obsession, depression and suicide as well as collective hysteria and physical disorders.

The most common mental distress was depression affecting more than half those interviewed, Hoi said.

Signs of depression were diversified, including insomnia, sluggishness, headache, vertigo, sweating and anorexia.

Among the children affected many were fed up with studying, frightened by contact with other people and even considering suicide.

In 2007 a Ha Noi Department of Health survey showed only 10 per cent of those surveyed suffer from mental distress, Hoi said.

"Most depressed children come to hospital for treatment when their disease is chronic and difficult to cure."

Hoi said that families' excessive interest or disinterest could lead to mental illnesses among children who could then eventually become vulnerable to negative behaviour and often go on to commit crimes.

He said that a schoolboy who was scared of being asked by his mother about his marks at school has been treated at the hospital. The boy had been pressed by his mother to learn in the evening after dinner.

"He was so fed up he cried out when she pressed him to sit at the table to study," Hoi said.

Meanwhile, Luu Thi My Thuc, a psychology doctor of the National Paediatrics Hospital, said there were many causes of mental illness.

Children today did not have to do the cooking and washing, and many grown children did not know how to clean a house, she said. They also did not have to clean the classroom as each school hired cleaners.

"They lack joy in labour and the spirit of mutual assistance. In their parents' opinion, what they have to do is to learn well," Thuc said.

To have good mental health, it was necessary to promote special care and co-ordination between family, school and society.

Dr Hoi said there was prejudice and discrimination against people with mental health problems which made them feel ashamed and lacking in self-confidence.

"Changing that kind of behaviour requires a community-based education strategy through media agencies and close co-ordination between the healthcare, education, labour, invalids and social affairs sectors, as well as the goodwill and attitude of the public," he said.

"To reduce the number of children suffering from mental distress, we need to train psychiatrists who will listen to people with mental disorders and support people who are vulnerable to mental disorders."

However, Viet Nam lacked psychiatrists and it was hard for them to work in schools, she said. Doctors often intervened when symptoms of mental disease were reported.

Viet Nam has no long-term training programmes for clinical psychiatrists to work in schools, or medical and social organisations. It has only carried out pilot projects and short-term training for psychiatrists, researchers and lecturers working in this field along with international organisations.

In the long term, Hoi said, it was imperative to improve the national school curricula, aimed at reducing pressure on students, promote counselling services at schools and training students in psychology and mental health subjects at universities.

"Schools, teachers and parents could create better conditions for children to feel relax in all school activities," he said.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News