The Ministry of Health for the first lists children as a priority group who need mental disease prevention in its Guiding Opinions on Further Consolidating Mental Hygiene Work released Sunday. According to statistics among Chinese children and juveniles under 17 at least 30 million are troubled by various emotional disorders and behavioral problems.

An estimate by the World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that global child emotional disorders would increase by 50 percent by 2020, becoming five major causes for disease, death and disability. Whilst the mental hygiene conditions among Chinese children and juveniles are rather worrying. Psychiatrists discovered that the emotional disorders among middle and primary school students mainly manifest as problems in human relations, emotional stability and learning adaptability. According to estimates among these children the crime, alcoholic addiction, drug addiction and anti-social personality disorder rates in their early adulthood are 5 to 10 times higher than those among ordinary people. In 2002 behavioral disorder suffering rate among the children in some key primary schools in Beijing Zhongguancun area was 18.2 percent and was featured with increasing number of behaviors such as anxiety and depress.

In the newly-released Guiding Opinions on Further Consolidating Mental Hygiene Work it is stated to strengthen mental health education and mental hygiene knowledge training among teachers, class supervisors and school doctors; increase their ability to discover child and juvenile mental problems in early stages; launch mental health education and consulting services to provide children with mental guidance and help in accordance with the special characteristics of children and juvenile of different age groups.

Currently the suffering rate of various mental diseases in China has reached 13.47 percent with 16 million people suffering from mental diseases.

By People's Daily Online