Experts focus on adolescent mental health for robust national development
Staff Reporter :
Experts have underscored the need for addressing adolescent’s mental health for achieving robust socio-economic growth and national development and to reduce the burden of treatment cost in the later period of their lives.
They further said that the guardians and teachers should pay heed to the needs and demands of the adolescents so that they do not feel isolated and recourse to the wrong path.
The observation came during a round table discussion on “Adolescent Mental Health: Challenges and Possible Solutions to ensure mental well-being of adolescents,” organsed by Dnet, a non-government organisation, at its conference room in the capital on Monday.
In the welcome speech, Dnet Co-Founder and Executive Director M Shahadat Hossain said that one-fifth of the country’s total population is adolescents, but their unique needs remain often unaddressed.
“Adolescents get exposed to various sides of society and become vulnerable which can affect the mental health of adolescents. This can lead to various disorders like emotional disorders, behavioral disorders, eating disorders, self-harming, etc,” he said.
In the keynote paper, Associate Professor, Child Adolescent and Family Psychiatry Department, National Institute of Mental Health Dr. Helal Uddin Ahmed said, “The adolescents should not be bracketed with ages only, rather their behaviour and thoughts should be considered.”
“If adolescents are not given due attention, they might be exposed to various anti-social activities. So, they need to give more attention for building a generation with sound mental health,” he said.
Regarding the importance of well-being of mental health he said, “Adolescent with sound mental health can contribute more on social, economic, political, development and educational agenda. The policy makers should focus here with more budgetary allocation.”
Assistant Professor, Child, Adolescent and Family Psychiatry, National Institution of Mental Health Dr Sadia Afrin said, “If the adolescents are not given proper attention, it will be difficult to build a happy and prosperous society. Besides, if the problems of the adolescents are addressed in the early stage, it will reduce the disease burden in the later part of the life.”
Deputy Project Coordinator, Nutrition Research Division of ICDDR,b Dr Mohammad Sohel Shomik said that the children are being isolated due to the excessive exposure to the mobile devices, and more attention is needed here.
Deputy Coordinator, Mental health and Psychosocial support, BRAC Institute of Educational Development Marin Sultana said that the guardians and parents should be more empathetic to the children and adolescent to understand their views and to support them accordingly so that they do not feel isolated.
Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Enam Medical College and Research Fellow of Dnet said that the government’s total expenditure on mental health is only 0.5 percent of total health expenditure and yearly total mental health expenditure is $ 0.1 per person.
