Youth suicide: Relationship problems involved in seven out of 10 deaths in Hong Kong
The figure was revealed as a committee held its first meeting to discuss ways to prevent student suicides
Over 70 per cent of youngsters who took their lives in recent years had relationship problems with peers or parents, according to the chairman of a committee set up to prevent student suicides.
The panel, which was formed after 22 students committed suicide since the start of the current academic year, held its first meeting on Friday.
“Information gathered from various sources reveals that each case of student suicide had complicated underlying causes and was triggered by different factors,” committee chairman Professor Paul Yip Siu-fai said.
“These problems included mental health, emotion, adaptation and interpersonal relations,” he said.
Yip said the data currently available showed that more than 70 per cent of suicide cases in recent years involved interpersonal relationship problems with peers or parents, and that 20 per cent had a record of taking advantage of psychiatric services.
“Of all these cases, more than 80 per cent were caused by interaction of a number of complicated factors,” said Yip, who is the director of the Centre for Suicide Research and Prevention at the University of Hong Kong.
