Psy­cho­log­i­cal de­pres­sion among stu­dents ad­verse­ly im­pact­ed by the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic and the sub­se­quent clo­sure of schools is re­al.

And par­ents and teach­ers are be­ing urged to pay close at­ten­tion to the be­hav­iour­al changes and mood swings of chil­dren as this could be an ear­ly in­di­ca­tor that some­thing is wrong and pro­fes­sion­al help is need­ed.

Re­peat­ing ear­li­er calls for more at­ten­tion to be fo­cused in this area, sec­re­tary of the As­so­ci­a­tion of Psy­chi­a­trists of T&T Dr Var­ma Deyals­ingh said, "The Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion needs on­line de­pres­sion rat­ing scales added to our on­line cur­ricu­lum, so chil­dren can be iden­ti­fied and get help."

In­di­cat­ing he had ap­pealed for its im­ple­men­ta­tion be­fore, Deyals­ingh said, "Par­ents play a crit­i­cal role in get­ting kids to talk about their con­cerns and fears."

Deyals­ingh’s ad­vice fol­lows the death of a 14-year-old stu­dent from Ch­agua­nas who re­port­ed­ly died by sui­cide on Fri­day.

The Form Two stu­dent, who at­tends a school in Cen­tral, was last seen around 11 am on Jan­u­ary 22 by a fe­male rel­a­tive.

Ac­cord­ing to a po­lice re­port, the stu­dent and a rel­a­tive al­leged­ly ar­gued over his school work be­fore she left the house to pur­chase food. Up­on her re­turn about an hour-and-a-half lat­er, she found him with a ban­dana wrapped around his neck and tied to a door­knob.

Af­ter per­form­ing CPR on his un­re­spon­sive body, the woman con­tact­ed the Emer­gency Health Ser­vices and the stu­dent was rushed to the Ch­agua­nas Health Fa­cil­i­ty where he was pro­nounced dead.

On Sat­ur­day, a griev­ing rel­a­tive cried as he said, "These chil­dren need coun­selling."

Re­veal­ing it was a two-par­ent house­hold where both worked, the man de­scribed the on­ly child as "a very qui­et and lov­ing per­son."

With­out re­veal­ing any of the fam­i­ly’s per­son­al in­for­ma­tion, the rel­a­tive spoke about the im­pact the lock­down may have had on the child. "The lack of ac­tiv­i­ties def­i­nite­ly did not help," he added.

Gads­by-Dol­ly: Coun­selling and sup­port for fam­i­ly

Ex­tend­ing con­do­lences to the fam­i­ly, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly de­scribed the in­ci­dent as very sad.

She as­sured that of­fi­cials from the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion (SSSD) would con­tact the fam­i­ly to of­fer coun­selling and sup­port.

Asked if the SSSD had ob­served any in­crease in re­quests for coun­selling as a re­sult of ad­verse ef­fects which may have been caused by the lock­down, Gads­by-Dol­ly said, "They have not in­di­cat­ed a large spike, but they have no­ticed some dif­fer­ences in the type of re­ports com­ing in."

Deyals­ingh: In­crease in child­hood de­pres­sion

Mean­while, Deyals­ingh said the world had been wit­ness­ing an in­crease in child­hood de­pres­sion with­in re­cent times.

Claim­ing chil­dren were un­der pres­sure and younger and younger peo­ple were be­ing af­fect­ed, he said, "Sui­cide is the sec­ond high­est cause of death in teenagers and in the last decade, de­pres­sion has in­creased by 18 per cent."

He added that near­ly one of every eight chil­dren be­tween the ages of six and 12 has sui­ci­dal thoughts. The sui­cide rate is ap­prox­i­mate­ly four times high­er among males than fe­males, with fe­males at­tempt­ing sui­cide three times as of­ten as males.

Re­veal­ing that he had been reach­ing out to sen­si­tise par­ents, he ad­vised, "Once you have young chil­dren, the re­al­i­ty must be you can lose them to sui­cide. Our du­ties as a par­ent are to clothe, feed, pro­tect and ed­u­cate them. Now a new du­ty is to pro­tect them from them­selves."

In the 2007 Glob­al School Health Re­port for T&T, it was found that 18 per cent of stu­dents with­in the 13-15 year age group who were in­ter­viewed, con­sid­ered at­tempt­ing sui­cide and 20 per cent of the fe­male stu­dents were more like­ly to plan how they would at­tempt sui­cide.

Deyals­ingh warned that COVID-19, "has now mul­ti­plied the men­tal fall­out we are wit­ness­ing."

He said, "COVID has seen homes rav­aged by pover­ty and an un­em­ployed par­ent is a par­ent on edge. We have seen in­creas­es in do­mes­tic vi­o­lence and sex­u­al abuse, and peo­ple try­ing to ad­just to the new norm. The un­cer­tain­ty of when this will end, the joys of teenage re­la­tion­ships and friend­ships have been stymied.

"Some are ask­ing why study and they lose them­selves for hours in a vir­tu­al world. Par­ents are at their wit's end to get chil­dren to leave their on­line games and must tread care­ful­ly as this vir­tu­al life has more mean­ing to cer­tain chil­dren."

Warn­ing signs

Deyals­ingh said par­ents are best po­si­tioned to see the warn­ing signs which in­cludes:

* Changes in ap­petite, sleep, tem­pera­ment

* Loss of in­ter­est in ac­tiv­i­ties once en­joyed

* Pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with death which can man­i­fest in re­cur­ring themes of death or self-de­struc­tion in art­work or writ­ten as­sign­ments

* In­tense sad­ness and/or hope­less­ness

* So­cial with­draw­al from fam­i­ly, friends, sports

* Al­co­hol and sub­stance abuse

* Gift­ing or giv­ing away of pos­ses­sions

* Risky be­hav­iour

* Lack of en­er­gy

* In­abil­i­ty to think clear­ly or con­cen­trate,

* De­clin­ing school per­for­mance/in­creased ab­sences from school

* In­creased ir­ri­tabil­i­ty