In the same event, Ministry of Health’s Directorate of Mental Health Intermediate Epidemiological Health Expert, dr. Edduwar Idul Riyadi, Sp.KJ, reported that the Government has created policies for creating suicide prevention guidelines as part of its effort to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal of reducing the national suicide death rate by one third by 2030. “Both National Police and Statistics Indonesia data show that about 700 suicides occur each year. By 2030, we hope to suppress one third of this number. That is sufficient proof that our efforts to prevent suicide are successful,” he said.
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dr. Edduwar highlighted the fact that teen suicide is on the rise. To prevent it, the Ministry of Health is creating and implementing a suicidal tendency early detection program for children and teens. “When we find indications of suicidal tendencies, we intervene by providing education on how to improve children’s and teen’s self-confidence, and how to improve their psychological and social skills. This will strengthen them and lessen the likelihood for suicide in their age group,” he said. “Furthermore, scarce mental health literacy, especially among these youngsters, combined with the lack of trustworthy adults and authority figures around them, might push them to perform mental and psychological self-diagnosis. This is why we are also increasing our efforts to improve children’s mental health literacy by cooperating with the Ministry of Education to provide this knowledge in schools.” (est)