Media Coverage: Dark side of studying revealed in students

2015/03/26

More than 60 percent of secondary students show symptoms of slight to severe depression, with 7 percent even have thoughts of suicide, a survey found.

The Christian Family Service Centre and Hong Kong Polytechnic University questioned 12,518 secondary students from 2011 to 2014 about their anxiety and depression conditions.

The survey found 38 percent of students had slight depression within four weeks prior to the test.

About 16.5 percent had moderate depression, while 8 percent had severe or very severe symptoms.

The survey also found more than 50 percent of the students had slight to severe anxiety.
 

Most of those were unhappy about their grades and stressed over homework.

‘We found that students who usually have anxiety are also showing depressive symptoms more often than other students,'' said Mak Yim-wah, assistant professor at PolyU School of Nursing.

She said these students felt they were losers and had disappointed their family. ``They are usually down, sad, or even desperate,’  she said.

Petsy Chow Sin-yee, head of adolescent mental health prevention and intervention at the service center, said parents, teachers and others should pay attention to youth's psychological health.

‘They should observe if the youth are excessively exhausted, agitated, find it difficult to concentrate, there is change of sleeping habits, or are anxious.’