1.6% of Hong Kong secondary school pupils tried to take their own lives last year and 3.7% considered it, major survey finds
- Health Department survey of 330,000 pupils also finds youngsters’ eyesight has deteriorated and weight has remained high over the coronavirus pandemic
- Officials say referrals to specialists have gone up to 1.8 per cent of pupils in 2022-23 compared with 1.1 per cent in 2018-19
An official survey of 330,000 schoolchildren has found 1.6 per cent of Hong Kong secondary pupils tried to take their own lives in the last academic year and 3.7 per cent considered killing themselves, the Department of Health has said.
The figure for those that had considered suicide was almost 50 per cent up on the rate for 2018-19.
The annual look at the welfare of the city’s schoolchildren, unveiled on Wednesday, found an increased number of pupils needed professional help to deal with psychosocial and behavioural problems.
A spokesman for the department said it wanted to “safeguard both the physical and psychological health of students through health promotion and disease prevention services, enabling them to gain the maximum benefit from the education system and develop their full potential”.
A self-administered questionnaire by youngsters who went to student health service centres showed that 2.8 per cent of all respondents had considered suicide in the previous 12 months and 1.3 per cent had tried to take their own lives.
The survey included 233,000 primary school pupils and 97,000 at the secondary level.
