Mental Health Problems in Indonesian Children: A Review Study
- 1. Department of Psychiatry, Bumi Persada Health College of Lhokseumawe, Indonesia
Abstract
Objective: This study aims to review scientific literature about Mental Health Problems (MHP)
in Indonesian population, especially children and important findings of the studies.
Materials & methods: Two methods of searching were conducted; English peer-reviewed
literature from Pub Med and MEDLINE and the keywords included Mental Health Problems,
children, Indonesia. Specifically, mood disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety, phobia, insomnia, ADHD
and OCD were also included. Several related studies published in Bahasa (Indonesian Language)
were searched in Indonesian version of Google with “masalahkesehatanjiwa” and “anak” as the
keywords.
Results & discussion: At least, there are eight studies conducted in Indonesia related to MHP
in children both in national and international publications. The studies applied various instruments
and revealed different results. The majority of the studies found that Indonesian children had risk
for MHP, some factors such as academic competence, family relationship, and maternal parenting
stress related to MHP, andsome intervention-based researches reported to have effective result
in this population, such as atypical antipsychotic in adolescents with schizophrenia, Stroop test
in children with ADHD and Triple P-Positive Parenting Program in children with emotional and
behavioral problems. More studies should be conducted to investigate factors related to MHP
based on Indonesian population as well as interventions to minimize the impact of MHP in children
in Indonesia.