Tuesday March 19th, 2024
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Egypt's Ministry of Health Reveals Shocking Psych Study Results on Egyptian Teens

Suicidal thoughts, crippling anxiety and morbid depression among other things seem to ail the Country’s young minds, according to the Ministry of Health.

Staff Writer

For many all over this pulsating nightmare of a universe we inhabit, high-school isn’t the best of times, doubly (triply?) so in Egypt; what with students typically having much less of a focus on having a healthy social life, rewarding hobbies, and having to inhumanely study for a good few years to guarantee a future. So it comes as no surprise that a recent mental health report by the Ministry of Health revealed that 29.8% of high-school students seem to be plagued by a slew of psychological ailments – 21% of which contemplate suicide recurrently.

The study took a hefty sample size of 10,000 students between the ages of 14 and 17 from an assortment in schools spanning Cairo, Monoufeya and Assiut, with 41.2% of the group being male, and 58.8% female. The results revealed that 29.8% of students seemed to struggle with multiple forms of anxiety, chronic tension, speech impediments as well as various severities of depression. Offering some form of catharsis to the issue, 19.9% of students seem to be seeking psychiatric assistance, or have sought help in the past.

Narcotic use and addiction seem to also have a hand in the mess, with numerous students taking to illegal drugs, and a worrying majority relying on cigarettes. According to the study, 3.6% of students turned to drugs due to personal problems, 3.3% seemed to make use of their purported concentration-boosting effects, 40% to deal with stress, 35% due to unkempt emotional issues, 24.9% due to domestic problems and just 2.7% out of sheer curiosity. Smoking, on the other hand, seems to affect students as young as ages 11 to 14, constituting about 8% of the sample size.

The Egyptian high-school system, for all intents and purposes, is not a healthy or humane process for any child of any age whatsoever, luckily for future generations, a massive overhaul of Egypt’s educational process is already taking effect as we speak, so here’s hoping for a less depressing future.

Photo from CNN.