About one-eighth of junior-high, senior-high and vocational students in Taipei and New Taipei City showed signs of a “clearly depressed mood” and are in need of professional help, a survey released on Wednesday by the John Tung Foundation showed.
The survey, which collected 2,140 responses from students in June, found that 70.4 percent of respondents were stressed by academics, 44.7 percent by uncertainty about the future and 33 percent by interpersonal relations, the foundation’s mental health center director Yeh Ya-hsing (葉雅馨) said.
The results showed that 18.7 percent of respondents said they would “actively seek help” when they are feeling down, she said, adding that not wanting to “trouble the other person” was the top reason given for not seeking help.
Photo: CNA / John Tung Foundation
More than half, 52.3 percent, of respondents said they would turn to their friends or classmates first for help, she said.
Others, 20.2 percent, said they would seek help from their mother, while 9.7 percent would go to a sibling and 5.7 percent would go to their father, she added.
The survey also found that 13.5 percent of respondents “often” feel lonely, Yeh said.
The results showed that the more frequently a person reported feeling lonely, the more likely they were to report signs of a “clearly depressed mood.”
Forty-eight percent of respondents who were found to have a “clearly depressed mood” reported weekday Internet use of six hours or more per day, according to the survey.
An app developed by the foundation was used to identify signs of a depressed mood in respondents, Yeh said, adding that the app also offers tools to help users relieve stress.
Keeping a “mood diary” and recording stressful events, as well as how they were handled, can help individuals avoid falling into negative emotions when they encounter similar situations in the future, she said.
Many studies on the prevention of depression show that “mood screening” can help a person understand their emotional state, John Tung Foundation chief executive officer Yao Shi-yuan (姚思遠) said.
The foundation developed the app seven years ago, he said.
The app was upgraded this year to include new functions, he added.
It includes three questionnaires targeted at different age groups, he said.
When feelings of unhappiness begin to affect psychological and physiological health, and when the duration and frequency of those feelings begin to increase, professional intervention should be sought out, Taiwanese Society of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry president Chen Chih-tsai (陳質采) said.
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