PETALING JAYA: Acknowledging that higher rates of psychological distress had impacted children during the Covid-19 pandemic, better mental health support has been provided at primary and secondary school levels, said Tan Sri Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah.

       The Health director-general said the ministry has taken several measures to address the issue, including strengthening the Healthy Mind Programme in schools, which is a collaboration effort with the Ministry of Education.

       “At present, a total of 7,780 primary schools and 2,450 secondary schools are implementing this programme.

       “The main objective of this programme is to promote good mental health, to empower the school community on self-mental health care and to identify children with mental health issues for early intervention and treatment,” he said recently.

       Dr Noor Hisham explained that the guidelines on the implementation of the Healthy Mind Programme in the new norm and referral pathway to health facilities for mental health crisis cases in schools were also developed during the pandemic.

       “School counsellors have also been trained to detect early mental health issues among children and refer them appropriately,” he said.

       The National Health and Morbidity Survey in 2019 found that some 424,000 children in Malaysia are struggling with mental health problems, indicating that mental health issues among the group may have become an epidemic.

       Dr Noor Hisham said that, by domains, the highest prevalence were issues related to peer problems (42.9%) followed by pro-social skills (27.7%), conduct problems (15.9%), emotional health (8.3%) and hyperactivity problems (2.3%).

       “The National Health and Morbidity Survey among children has not been repeated, as such comparison data is not available post pandemic.

       “However, data from the Royal Police Malaysia showed increasing suicide trends from 3% in 2019 to 6% in 2020 among those aged 15 to18 years,” he added.

       The Health Ministry, he added, had provided psychosocial support helpline services, in collaboration with non-governmental organisation (NGOs).

       “Since March 2020, the ministry in collaboration with NGOs have set up helpline services to provide psychosocial support to those in need.

       “The helpline psychosocial support services are being operated by counsellors and medical experts trained in the mental health field,” he said.

       “In 2021, from the total calls received, approximately 2% of calls were received from those aged below 19 years old.

       “Our data showed that one in five of them required emotional support due to various reasons mainly family issues, relationship conflicts, symptoms of depression and challenges in adaptation during the pandemic (PdPR),” added Dr Noor Hisham.

       During the Covid-19 pandemic, the health ministry also provided mental health and psychosocial support services through its teams mobilised at the state, district, hospital and health clinic levels.

       “The teams consist of various categories trained in mental health – public health physicians, psychiatrists, family medicine specialists,” said Dr Noor Hisham.

       Aside from that the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry and Jakim also provide helpline services through Talian Kasih and KSK-Care respectively, noted Dr Noor Hisham.