Covid-19 has drastically transformed the lives of people across the world in an unprecedented manner, but its impact on the mental health of the youth has been unimaginable, unexpected and potentially long-lasting.
On average, 31 children died by suicide every day in India in 2020, according to the latest annual report by National Crime Records Bureau. Experts are now calling for urgent attention on the psychological trauma caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on children.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau data, 11,396 children died by suicide in 2020, an 18 percent increase from 2019 and 21 percent jump from 2018. The average suicide rate in India is 10.9 per lakh, and the majority of people who commit suicide are below 44 years of age.
In fact, even before COVID-19, mental health among adolescents has rarely received due attention in India. As per National Mental Health Survey 2015-16 conducted by National Institute of Mental Health & Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, 9.8 million teenagers in the age group 13-17 years suffer from depression and other mental health disorders and are “in need of active intervention”. A study by India State- Level Disease Burden Initiative Mental Disorders Collaborators published in The Lancet in 2019, ranked suicide as the first among all causes of death in women aged 15-29 years in 26 out of the 31 states, and among women aged 15-39 years in 24 states in the country.
The Triggers
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