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Symptoms of anxiety and depression in adolescent students; a perspective from Sri Lanka

BACKGROUND: Sri Lanka recorded an extraordinary high suicide rate for adolescents aged 15 - 19 in the early 1990s (46.5/100,000). With this in perspective, the Ministry of Health in Sri Lanka recommends school programmes for adolescents by mental health units of local hospitals. METHODS: We conducte...

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Autores principales: Rodrigo, Chaturaka, Welgama, Srina, Gurusinghe, Jayantha, Wijeratne, Thilina, Jayananda, Gamini, Rajapakse, Senaka
Formato: Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2010
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2855518/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20334654
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1753-2000-4-10
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author Rodrigo, Chaturaka
Welgama, Srina
Gurusinghe, Jayantha
Wijeratne, Thilina
Jayananda, Gamini
Rajapakse, Senaka
author_facet Rodrigo, Chaturaka
Welgama, Srina
Gurusinghe, Jayantha
Wijeratne, Thilina
Jayananda, Gamini
Rajapakse, Senaka
author_sort Rodrigo, Chaturaka
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Sri Lanka recorded an extraordinary high suicide rate for adolescents aged 15 - 19 in the early 1990s (46.5/100,000). With this in perspective, the Ministry of Health in Sri Lanka recommends school programmes for adolescents by mental health units of local hospitals. METHODS: We conducted cross sectional surveys to screen for symptoms of anxiety and depression among students aged 14 - 18 during school mental health programmes. Two schools were randomly selected within the Ratnapura municipality (urban population of approx. 50,000), Sri Lanka and all students aged 14-18 were assessed with self administered (pre tested, Sinhalese translations) questionnaires [Center for epidemiologic studies depression scale, Anxiety screening test of suicide and mental health association international]. RESULTS: A total of 445 students were assessed (male-54.4%, female 45.6%). Thirty six percent screened positive for depression (mild depression-17%, severe depression-19%) and 28% screened positive for severe anxiety. Females screened positive for depression and anxiety significantly more than the males (p = 0.0001, 0.005 respectively). Students in classes facing barrier examinations at the end of the year had the highest positivity rates. Examination related issues (36%) were the most commonly cited problem. RECOMMENDATIONS: It is recommended that: 1. School mental health development programmes in Sri Lanka concentrate more on reducing examination related stress, and in particular focus on the female students 2. Policy decisions are made to reduce competition for higher education 3. A nationally coordinated survey on mental health of adolescent students is carried out utilizing the island-wide network of medical officers of mental health.
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spelling pubmed-28555182010-04-17 Symptoms of anxiety and depression in adolescent students; a perspective from Sri Lanka Rodrigo, Chaturaka Welgama, Srina Gurusinghe, Jayantha Wijeratne, Thilina Jayananda, Gamini Rajapakse, Senaka Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health Letter to the Editor BACKGROUND: Sri Lanka recorded an extraordinary high suicide rate for adolescents aged 15 - 19 in the early 1990s (46.5/100,000). With this in perspective, the Ministry of Health in Sri Lanka recommends school programmes for adolescents by mental health units of local hospitals. METHODS: We conducted cross sectional surveys to screen for symptoms of anxiety and depression among students aged 14 - 18 during school mental health programmes. Two schools were randomly selected within the Ratnapura municipality (urban population of approx. 50,000), Sri Lanka and all students aged 14-18 were assessed with self administered (pre tested, Sinhalese translations) questionnaires [Center for epidemiologic studies depression scale, Anxiety screening test of suicide and mental health association international]. RESULTS: A total of 445 students were assessed (male-54.4%, female 45.6%). Thirty six percent screened positive for depression (mild depression-17%, severe depression-19%) and 28% screened positive for severe anxiety. Females screened positive for depression and anxiety significantly more than the males (p = 0.0001, 0.005 respectively). Students in classes facing barrier examinations at the end of the year had the highest positivity rates. Examination related issues (36%) were the most commonly cited problem. RECOMMENDATIONS: It is recommended that: 1. School mental health development programmes in Sri Lanka concentrate more on reducing examination related stress, and in particular focus on the female students 2. Policy decisions are made to reduce competition for higher education 3. A nationally coordinated survey on mental health of adolescent students is carried out utilizing the island-wide network of medical officers of mental health. BioMed Central 2010-03-24 /pmc/articles/PMC2855518/ /pubmed/20334654 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1753-2000-4-10 Text en Copyright ©2010 Rodrigo et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Letter to the Editor
Rodrigo, Chaturaka
Welgama, Srina
Gurusinghe, Jayantha
Wijeratne, Thilina
Jayananda, Gamini
Rajapakse, Senaka
Symptoms of anxiety and depression in adolescent students; a perspective from Sri Lanka
title Symptoms of anxiety and depression in adolescent students; a perspective from Sri Lanka
title_full Symptoms of anxiety and depression in adolescent students; a perspective from Sri Lanka
title_fullStr Symptoms of anxiety and depression in adolescent students; a perspective from Sri Lanka
title_full_unstemmed Symptoms of anxiety and depression in adolescent students; a perspective from Sri Lanka
title_short Symptoms of anxiety and depression in adolescent students; a perspective from Sri Lanka
title_sort symptoms of anxiety and depression in adolescent students; a perspective from sri lanka
topic Letter to the Editor
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2855518/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20334654
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1753-2000-4-10
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