In a letter to the Star newspaper, entitled, “Giving voice to silent sufferers”, Dr Wong Min Fui a Doctor of Public Health candidate from the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, University of Malaya, and Dr Feisul Idzwan Mustapha and Dr Nurashikin Ibrahim from the Ministry of Health Malaysia highlighted the issue of depression among adolescent and adults in Malaysia.
The letter was in response to an article “15-year-old girl found hanged in her Sabah hostel room”, published in The Star on 16th July 2020.
This is another preventable cause. Though our adult’s depression prevalence is lower than some of the neighbouring countries, this figure may be under-reporting because of the complexity in diagnosing a case. Based on the review paper, stigma is one of the major barriers to access to healthcare. One of the ways to reduce the stigma is by educating the public to raise awareness. A better understanding helps to normalise mental health issues or illnesses in the population. People will start to accept and thus reducing the discriminatory towards people having the condition. This will encourage more people to seek for health for their mental related issues.
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