MORE than 500 young people aged 15-29 committed suicide in Malaysia in 2019, costing the country RM346.2 million in lost potential income and taxes, researchers said.

The findings were in a report titled, Youth Suicide in Malaysia filed by IDEAS and Relate Mental Health Malaysia.

Men made up 74%, or 382 of the 512 youth suicides.

Each death cost RM676,165 in foregone income and loss of potential government revenue due to foregone income taxes, said the report co-authored by Relate Health Malaysia founder Dr Chua Sook Ning and IDEAS senior research executive Vaisnavi Mogan. 

For every successful suicide, there were 20 other attempts.

Contributing factors were age, gender, mental health condition, interpersonal crisis, ethnicity, employment and media coverage.

One major contributing factor is the inability to handle critical changes in their lives.

At the forum held in conjunction with the release of the report today, Subang Jaya assemblyman Michelle Ng said youth was a time of changes as one made one’s way from primary to tertiary school.

“The change in environment and poverty can be overwhelming. At this stage they also discover relationships and this may be hard to handle. In the process of adapting to these changes is where youths need support,” said Ang, who launched SJ Care Warriors to equip people with the skills for self-resiliency and to support those facing depression.

Green Ribbon Group co-founder Tengku Puteri Iman Afzan said social media pressures, including cyberbullying, especially during lockdowns, could have added to youth suicides.

“Social interaction in the virtual realm will have long term effects for children who have not been able to go to school. Depression and suicide are going up because we have too much access to social media.

“The youth need to be educated on social media etiquette and to be more positive,” she said.

During last year’s movement control order period from March 18 to October 31, 266 people committed suicide, an average of 30 cases a month, or one every day.

“The pandemic is the worst thing to have happened recently but it has cast a spotlight on mental health and the importance of it,” Tengku Puteri Iman said.

“Covid has made the non-anxious anxious, and the anxious more anxious. Those who don’t believe in anxiety or mental health now have a wake-up call.”

Dr Nurashikin Ibrahim, who heads the mental health unit of the Health Ministry, said the government had introduced many measures in schools to help the youth.

“MOH and the Ministry of Education in 2011 developed the healthy mind programme in schools to help teachers and councillors detect students who have mental health issues and to refer them for treatment. 

“Screening has been implemented in schools and training has been provided to teachers and this programme is being expanded to cover suicide,” she said.

She added community-level efforts must be boosted to prevent suicide among students and young working adults. – February 19, 2021.