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DEPRESSION AMONG YOUTH IN MALAYSIA
Depression is one of a serious issues among Malaysian that has not yet to be resolved. This mental health is a serious issue that need to be stress due to many cases involve committed suicide, personality change toward negative side and drug addict. Unfortunately, majority of this mental illness were affected by youth aged 13 and above. According to Syed Saddiq, 1 out of 10 youth in Malaysia contemplated suicide due to this illness. The recent incident were during PT3 examination week, where there was a student who committed suicide by jump from her 11th floor house in George Town, Penang.
Most people missed a fact that depression is caused by the environment of the patient. This illness are a common disease that affect people thinking, emotion and behaviour. Some people take stress to lightly that it could cause a serious illness that lead to depression. Some of the symptoms are they lose their appetite, having trouble making decision, insomnia and more. Early precaution can be done by asking a simple question like “How’s your day? “. Those who have depression are mostly due to not having someone to talk to. Adults especially parent play the most important role in this case. There several stages of this illness, for some serious depression doctor will ask patient to refer the mental health professional.
"Depression can lead someone to go through changes in their appetites and sleeping habits, feeling fatigue, slow in thinking or movement, as well as reduction in concentration.
"It can happen to anyone and it is not a sign of weakness, but the failure to treat the disease may lead to thoughts of dying and also suicide attempts," said Dr Micheal Ang Jin Kiat, a psychiatrist and senior lecturer at University Putra Malaysia.
As for youth, there are some common factor that may lead to this depression symptoms. Some of the factors are family issues, school performance, feeling isolated, environment stress and more. As they are going through puberty, teenagers can develop feelings of worthlessness toward things they do. However, depression also can be influence by genetics that has depression history. Whatever the reason is, depression usually developed due to feeling of isolated during hormone havoc and changes happening to teenagers.
There are several methods to treat these illness, family therapy is could be helpful especially if the main factor that develop the teenager depression is the family conflict. Some teenagers were affected by their family conflict and having no supports by their side worsen the situation. Besides that, meditation such as anti-depression monitored by doctor could reduce the tendency of depression to develop. However, taking anti-depression are not really recommended since there several more methods that can be use. If the patients feeling isolated, having friends and do activities that could help to mood boost is more helpful compare to therapy. Some youth in Malaysia are having depression due to their parents stress them to have a good school performance, however students can learn to enjoy studies rather than make it harder by study alone. Having study group or asking for teachers help could lessen their stress to develop. Parents should stop stressing out their children, they should make a good example for their child so that this kind of situation won’t have to repeat.
However, it is better to prevent rather than cure. Some prevention steps can be used to help these illness from affecting other adolescent. Live a healthy life style by getting regular exercise, eat well and sleep, managing stress and challenging negative thought patterns. As for parents, they could change their way of solving family conflict and try to build a positive environment for youth at home since they tend to spend most of their time at home. Teachers that make jokes and keep class in positive mood could help to reduce students stress level. It might seems simple, but it would make a big changes. Government could help to lessen depression happen among youth by providing some allowance for youth that have family financial crisis. Nowadays, government give allowance according to parent income, however some family might have a lot of financial problem although their income might seems well. This kind of approach will lessen stress level of youth who would like to further their studies without getting stress out over the fees and giving up studies.
As a youth I think that by sharing out positive environment could help to reduce the tendency of getting depression. Join activities organised by university and school also help to prevent feeling isolated develop. Try to speak your worries with someone that you trust could help to lessen stress when there are trying to give you advice and hear all your opinion. Some family members does not have any idea how their child was aware of the conflict, thus youth should voice out and seek for another family members help. It is not easy to suddenly change our habit, however it could lead us to be happier rather than reach out help from the drug and cigarette.
While doing this task I think that parent play a very important role that could lead to these illness. Youth nowadays are fragile compare to before this is due to the responsibility that there are having at a young age. Besides that, the surrounding could worsen the illness, thus, people nearby should take these mental disorder seriously and do some precaution step to prevent this grow among the community. Friends also could help by spreading positive vibe instead of bullying that could cause depression to happen among children at young age. In this modern era, cyber bully also some factors of depression. Therefore, teenager should prevent from wasting most of their time on social media and do more activities that could help with stress managing and health.
References:
E-Book
Moragne.W (2011) USA TODAY health reports: Diseases and Disorder, Depression. E-book library (online). Available at: https://books.google.com.my/books?id=X_dT0eg3_kIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=depression&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjFs6vi8KfeAhVPneAKHbDJAGoQ6AEIKjAA#v=onepage&q=depression&f=false
Newspaper
https://www.nst.com.my/news/exclusive/2017/05/243354/suicide-rise-among-malaysian-youth
Journal and Article
https://www.healthline.com/health/depression/risk-factors#2
Video
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depression prevention.mp4 Details
- Thursday, 01 November 2018 [10.3MB]