The white paper ‘Save our Demographic Dividend’ analyses why India has one of the world’s highest suicide rates for youth aged 15 to 29. Some points:
A white paper — Save our demographic dividend points out that teenagers find professional help difficult to get because only 13% of India has access to mental-health professionals.
Most developed nations spend above 4 per cent of their budgets on mental-health research, infrastructure, frameworks, and talent pool, according to a 2011 World Health Organization (WHO) report. India spends 0.06 per cent of its health budget on mental health, which is less than Bangladesh (0.44 per cent).
As per a study published in the journal Preventive Medicine, the activity levels of teenagers are comparable to 60-year-olds. Their sedentary lifestyle is a major concern.
Raghav Podar, who commissioned the paper said: “We need to create active strategies to handle the problems that teenagers face. We came across a meta-analysis of more than 200 coping and emotion regulation studies, by Bruce Compas in July 2017 that included more than 80,000 young people. The analysis suggests that when the teens used adaptive strategies, like looking at a problem in a different way, engaging in problem-solving or pursuing constructive communication, they were better able to manage the adverse effects of stress. However, those who used maladaptive strategies like suppressing, avoiding or denying their feelings, had higher levels of problems associated with stress.”
Students from “happy” families suffer from less depression, according to an October 2016 study conducted among Indian university students.
The paper identifies exhaustive symptoms for stress and depression like feeling overwhelmed or inability to cope, lack of sleep, trouble in concentrating, inability to switch off, increased irritability, low self-esteem, sensitivity to criticism, social withdrawal, excessive preoccupation with personal problems,
physical symptoms like fatigue, insomnia and headaches, fear of taking risks, feelings of being unloved and unwanted and excessive dependence.