Adolescents and young children are suffering from mental health problems due to frequent disruptions in academic activities amid Covid-19 pandemic, experts have observed.
The adverse social impact allegedly is evidenced from the increasing number of patients of this age group registered by the mental health support centers during the last six months.
The health experts have informed that they were getting increased cases of behavioural problems among the young children, requiring drugs and therapies.
The closure of educational institutions in different phases during the last one and half years might have caused mental disorder among this group of children, they said.
Most of the children are coming with different types of behavioral problems like suicidal tendency, aggressive or destructive nature, virtual addiction, etc., mental health experts said.
Almas Chowdhury (Pseudonym) is struggling to tackle her 15-year-old son in recent days. Earlier, the boy was gentle and calm in nature. But now he has become very argumentative coupled with a negative attitude and even getting so violent that he started hurting himself and destroying household goods.
Sarika Sultana (18) could not appear for the HSC examination as the government had cancelled it amid the pandemic. On the basis of her results in the previous exams, she secured a golden A+ and got admitted to a University. But, she is now facing difficulties managing the stresses and taking on new challenges due to a two-year study break.
Samit Parsee, a 7-year-old student of the city's Mastermind school, has become unwilling to go to school after its reopening. He was a regular school-going attentive boy, but his behaviour suddenly changed during this pandemic. His parents feel helpless as they see the boy crying with a panic-stricken face at the time of going to school.
These case studies well portrayed the sorry state of mental health of the children, who were undergoing treatment under the supervision of experts.
As the pandemic entered into the third year, the mental health experts have suggested paying more attention to the adolescents and young children as they are increasingly getting vulnerable to different types of disorders, including suicidal tendencies.
Dr Helal Uddin Ahmed, Associate Professor of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), said the suicidal tendency has increased among the young children during this pandemic.
In first 10 months of 2020, some 13,000 people committed suicide and most of them were between the age-group of 15 and 29.
Before the pandemic, some 10,000 people committed suicides in a year.
Addiction to virtual world, depression, behavioural problems and sleeping disorders are responsible for developing the suicidal tendency, he said.
He, however, highlighted few positive impacts of the pandemic on adolescents that it helped the children learn how to cope with the changed scenario and issues like health safety and resilience.
Dr Mekhala Sarkar, Associate Professor of the NIMH, said the closure of educational institutions has severely affected socialization, attracting the children to the internet.
"Interaction with people and the outer world is food for the mental growth of adolescents. But they are deprived of this," she added.
She suggested parents supervise the online classes so that the children cannot visit any prohibited sites.
Fatematuzzohora, clinical psychotherapists at Bangladesh Psychiatric Care (BPC) in the city's Rifles Square, said their patients of this age group (13 to 23) almost doubled in recent times.
Most of the complaints are family problems while some others are victims of domestic violence, early marriage due to closure of schools etc., she said.
Meanwhile, few universities have also taken steps to ensure mental health counseling for their students.
Director Student Counseling at North South University Fariha Harun said the NSU conducted some 3,000 individual counseling sessions for its students and guardians in 2021.
She stressed the need for conducting more research, alongside the sessions, on the challenges articulated by the students, in order to ensure that the counseling can effectively address their mental well being.
According to the early findings of an international survey of children and adults in 21 countries conducted by the UNICEF and Gallup - which is previewed in The State of the World's Children 2021 - a median of 19 per cent of young people aged 15-24 surveyed often feel depressed or have little interest in doing things.
In Bangladesh, the proportion was lower at 14 per cent. However, behind the data, there are millions of young people in Bangladesh who regularly feel depressed or unmotivated.
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