At least half of children and adolescents under state guardianship develop a lifelong mental illness, such as depression or attention deficit disorder (ADD), research from Linkou Chang Gung Memorial Hospital found.
The hospital at a news conference on Thursday announced the results of a study conducted by its Child Protection Center, which tracked the mental health of 97 children in four foster care residential institutions in the Taoyuan area from July 2011 to January 2014.
Nearly 3,000 children last year became wards of the state, many carrying emotional trauma from past situations, researchers said.
According to their findings, 54.6 percent of the children had some sort of lifetime psychiatric affliction, nearly two times higher than the 31.6 percent prevalence rate among all Taiwanese children.
Conduct disorder was the most common type at 22.7 percent, followed by ADD or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with 15.5 percent and oppositional defiant disorder at 13.4 percent, researchers said.
Nearly 10.3 percent of participants had depression, while 4.1 percent had post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), they added.
Compared with other children, ADD or ADHD is 1.5 times more prevalent among those in foster care institutions, depression is 6.7 times more prevalent and PTSD is 41 times more prevalent, they said.
The six-month prevalence rate among foster children was also slightly higher at 28.9 percent, compared with 25 percent in the overall population, research showed.
About 10 percent of the subjects reported feeling depressed, with up to 17 percent of those aged eight to 12 expressing depressive thoughts, researchers said.
Abuse can physically alter a person’s nervous, cardiovascular, reproductive and immune systems, as well as their ability to learn, said Sophie Liang (梁歆宜), an attending physician in the hospital’s child and adolescent psychiatry unit.
Many abused children and adolescents have difficulty focusing and controlling their actions, and can become impulsive, irritable and restless, she said.
Mistreatment or abuse can exacerbate other psychiatric conditions, such as autism, ADD or ADHD, and learning disabilities, center director Yeh Kuo-wei (葉國偉) said.
To illustrate their findings, Liang shared the example of a 12-year-old patient called “Hsiao Ni” (小妮).
For two years, Hsiao Ni was sexually abused by her mother’s boyfriend, who threatened her to keep quiet, Liang said.
Her mother learned about the abuse after taking her to a doctor for genital bleeding, at which point Hsiao Ni was taken into state custody, she said.
She was able to start a new life, but Liang said the abuse that Hsiao Ni experienced still affected her.
Psychological trauma from abuse lasts for decades, although early detection and intervention can help, Liang said.
As hospital work has shown her that long-term abuse affects a minor’s ability to focus and therefore their ability to adapt to school, Liang urged healthcare providers to evaluate a child’s complete mental and physical state to determine the most appropriate treatment and education plan.
The center’s study was published earlier this year in the Taiwanese Journal of Psychiatry.
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