A nationwide study on child and adolescent mental disorders has found that nearly 30 percent of children have mental disorders and need professional consultation and assistance.
The three-year study commissioned by the Ministry of Health and Welfare also found that 3.1 percent of children had thought of committing suicide within six months prior to being asked about it, meaning that for every 100,000 children, 3,100 have thought about taking their own life.
The figures are “worrisome,” Department of Mental and Oral Health Director-General Chen Li-chung (諶立中) said on Monday upon publication of the study conducted by Susan Gau (高淑芬), a professor of psychiatry at National Taiwan University’s College of Medicine.
It was the first nationwide epidemiological study of child and adolescent mental disorders of its kind in Taiwan, aiming to obtain prevalence rates — within the previous six months and over a lifetime — and to identify the psychosocial, individual, environmental and familial risk factors for mental disorders in the groups.
The mental disorders referred to in the research include learning disabilities, autism spectrum disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), oppositional defiant disorder and conduct disorder.
They also include mood disorders such as major depression, dysthymia and bipolar disorder, as well as anxiety disorders, phobias, obsessive compulsive disorder, sleep disorders, eating disorders and substance abuse disorders.
The school-based survey was conducted among students in the third, fifth and seventh grades, who were selected from 69 schools in 19 counties and cities.
A total of 10,122 students received clinical interviews by Gau’s research team with their own and their parents’ consent.
The survey found that the weighted lifetime prevalence of those diagnosed as having any of the targeted mental disorders in children and adolescents was 32.3 percent, while the prevalence within the previous six months was 28.7 percent.
The mental disorder with the highest prevalence was ADHD at 11.1 percent, followed by nightmare disorder at 8.8 percent, phobias at 6.4 percent, conduct disorder at 4.4 percent, separation anxiety disorder at 3.3 percent, oppositional defiant disorder at 1.9 percent, social phobia at 1.8 percent and autism at 1 percent.
The figures are much higher than the one-year nationwide prevalence rate of 2.44 percent for ADHD, 0.33 percent for autism and less than 1 percent for other mental disorders in children and adolescents found in National Health Insurance research carried out in 2012.
Gau said that the preliminary results are similar to Western studies, which showed that about 25 percent of children and adolescents have at least one kind of psychiatric disorder.
The results indicate that “mental disorders are common in Taiwanese children and adolescents,” she wrote in the report.
Resources should be allocated for prevention and intervention to address child and adolescent mental disorders, Gau said.
A fugitive in a suspected cosmetic surgery fraud case today returned to Taiwan from Canada, after being wanted for six years. Internet celebrity Su Chen-tuan (蘇陳端), known as Lady Nai Nai (貴婦奈奈), and her former boyfriend, plastic surgeon Paul Huang (黃博健), allegedly defrauded clients and friends of about NT$1 billion (US$30.66 million). Su was put on a wanted list in 2019 when she lived in Toronto, Canada, after failing to respond to subpoenas and arrest warrants from the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office. Su arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 5am today on an EVA Air flight accompanied by a
COVID-19 infections have climbed for three consecutive weeks and are likely to reach another peak between next month and June, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. Weekly hospital visits for the disease increased by 19 percent from the previous week, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Director Guo Hung-wei (郭宏偉) said. From Tuesday last week to yesterday, 21 cases of severe COVID-19 and seven deaths were confirmed, and from Sept. 1 last year to yesterday, there were 600 cases and 129 deaths, he said. From Oct. 1 last year to yesterday, 95.9 percent of the severe cases and 96.7 percent of the deaths
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
Restarting the No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant would take up to 18 months, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said today. Kuo was answering questions during a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Economics Committee, where legislators are considering amendments to the Renewable Energy Development Act (再生能源發展條) amid concerns about the consequences of the Pingtung County reactor’s decommissioning scheduled for May 17. Its decommissioning is to mark the end of Taiwan’s nuclear power production. However, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers have proposed an amendment to the Nuclear Reactor Facilities Regulation Act (核子反應器設施管制法) that would extend the life of existing
RSS