Mental health Photo: VCG
 

A deputy to the National People's Congress (NPC) proposed adding a medical examination for depression to the annual physical examination of students at the ongoing two sessions, Chinese media thepaper.cn reported on Thursday.

Qin He, also the president of Jilin International Studies University, suggested making full use of the resources of schools and medical professionals to enhance the identification and awareness of psychological problems among adolescents, adding depression medical check-up items to the annual medical check-ups for students, and carry out multi-level preventive screening. 

"Youth suicides or delinquency caused by psychological problems have occurred repeatedly in recent years." Qin said that the number of psychological problems among teenagers is on the rise and cases are occurring at a lower age.

According to her proposal on "measures to strengthen mental health and depression prevention and treatment among young people," Qin also put forward four recommendations based on these current issues.

The first is to guide young people to plan their lives rationally, enabling them to form a reasonable world view, outlook on life and values, and basing their life pursuits on a reasonable foundation.

Second, the epidemiology of adolescent depression should be listed as a special task, and the advantages of education, health, community and other aspects should be fully utilized to form a synergy and participate in the research of adolescent depression, so as to achieve a comprehensive grasp of the epidemiological information of adolescent depression, the burden of disease and the current situation of the demand for and utilization of health services, and to set up and gradually improve a database of adolescent depression diseases.

The third recommendation is to strengthen media publicity, calling for the attention and care of society as a whole; for the majority of parents to hold public welfare activities related to adolescent mental health. Schools and the relevant education authorities should often organize some communication and exchange activities between students; actively develop the role of the psychological counseling room in primary and secondary schools.

Qin also said that the government and relevant authorities should increase management over cyberspace by strengthening the supervision of information on relevant websites, and "cut off" content that is not conducive to the physical and mental health of young people, so as to effectively prevent the adverse effects on young people of online gaming, cyberlove, and cyberviolence.

Global Times