Noman Mosharef :
The young generations of the country are now under severe mental pressure on account of the adverse impact of the deadly novel corona virus.
The mental stress of the country’s 34.9 percent youths exceeded all past records by this time, whereas 70.8 per cent mentally upset youths are becoming physically shattered.
The suicidal attempt has thereby increased to be addressed soon in order to save them.. In the mean time about 50.1 per cent have thought of committing suicide.
An organization, who works for youths’ mental health, Aachol Foundation has conducted a survey titled ‘The Youths who thought of suicide and damaging mental health’ has revealed it.
Tanshen Rose, the founder of Aachol Foundation said that it was very alarming as a significant number of youths been tried to commit suicide during the Covid-19.
He said the survey was conducted aims to identifying various mental health problems of young people, identifying the causes of suicide and finding ways to solve it.
It should be noted that from March 2020 to February 2021, about 14,436 suicidal incidents had occurred in the country. After 322 case study it was seen that the age limit of 49 per cent was 20 to 35 and 57 per cent was women. Aachol Foundation has conducted their survey from June 1-15 where 2026 people participated. Most of the participants’ age was 18-25 and they were in total 1720 and in percentage 84.9. The females were more than males while 88.9 per cent participants were unmarried.
Most of the participants were college and university students whereas 7.1 percent was job holders, 0.9 per cent businessmen, 4.4 per cent unemployed and 2.8 per cent were other professionals including freelancers and entrepreneurs. According to the Aachol Foundation information, 38.1 per cent youths have thought of suicide, but they did not implement it. About 8.3 per cent have prepared various mediums for did it but did not succeed while 3.7 per cent attempt to suicide but failed.
Aachol Foundation said that most of the youths have suffered from mental depression such as all time mood off, loss of affection for favourable activities, unnatural sleeping, negative thinking and indecision in everything.
About 1239 participants (61.2 per cent) said that they had suffered from depression, while 44.3 per cent said that they could not share easily with others about their mental stress. When they were got under depression, 39.5 per cent shared their feelings with their friends, 22.5 per cent with family and 1.9 per cent on social platforms.
However, a large portion of the participants said that they could not share about their depression with their teachers. Of these young people, 76.1 percent had sufficient sleep, but 23.9 percent did not get enough sleep. In addition, most of these youths spent more time on social media than usual on a daily basis, which made them emotionally upset.
According to the survey, 28 percent spent more than six hours a day on social media, 26 percent use social media for 4 to 6 hours daily and 31 percent use social media for 2 to 4 hours daily. Ninety-four percent of survey participants said their mental health interferes with their daily activities.
It is very sad but true that only 8.6 percent of these youths have sought of advice of a psychiatrist. But 91.4 percent have never consulted a psychiatrist.
Young people said that the types of stress problems they face are: loss of focus on studies and work, irritable mood, feeling lonely, pressure for marriage despite unwillingness, financial problems, over thinking, mobile addiction, behavioral problems, lack of jobs, lack of job opportunities, session jams, uncertain future and death of family members etc.
Brain, Mental Health & Addiction Specialist and also Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Shaheed Suhrawardy Medical College & Hospital Dr. Ahasan Uddin Ahmed said, “The findings of this timely study clearly show how young generations are being hardest hit by the ongoing crisis.
Unless urgent action is taken, Dr Ahasan said, the nation’s youth will suffer severe and lasting impacts from this pandemic and its socio-economic fallout- both physically and psychologically.
