Fiji and Pacific island countries have some of the highest rates of suicide and mental health challenged populations globally, says psychology discipline co-ordinator at The University of the South Pacific, Dr Annie Crookes.
To commemorate mental health awareness week, she was among a group of female panellists during the Women In Media Mental Health Panel Discussions recently.
Dr Crookes said the official suicide statistics indicated high rates of suicide and mental illness were prominent among young people and adolescents, particularly in the West in Indo-fijian communities.
However, she said there were rising rates among older adults within the indigenous Pacific islander communities too.
“This suggests breakdowns and changes happening to the traditional strong community and religious support systems, likely due to urbanisation and economic changes,” she said.
“However, we also know there are many socio-cultural elements such as traditional gender norms and patriarchy leading to gender-based violence, high sexual assault and increasing drug use among others.
“Then we have issues around very high stigma, ignorance, disinformation about mental health and mental illness.
“So people do not seek help when they start to feel psychological symptoms.”
She added there was a need to significantly enhance and invest in mental health budgets from government.
“The best thing is to have interventions that foster community.
“This should be done in the national school curriculum such as emotional awareness training, problem solving, coping skills development, interpersonal relationship and sexual education.
“This is not to say the culture is bad or doesn’t care about each other, not about the country simply not caring.
“It is just the product of miseducation and lack of understanding about mental illness and a lack of normalising mental health and emotional distress and normalising help seeking.”
