Monday, 12 September 2022
The mental health of children and adolescents has deteriorated in the last three and a half years, Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist Dr. Erdem Beyoğlu has said, Yeniduzen reports.
In that time frame 31,000 applications have been made to the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Outpatient Clinic. One third of those are children with symptoms of Attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), he said.
The exact causes of ADHD are not fully understood, he said, noting that there are genetic factors and possibly too much time spent using mobiles and computers contributes to the disorder.
Dr. Beyoğlu also said that cases of child abuse have risen. There was a time when he had encountered 1-2 cases of abuse per month, that number has risen to 1-2 cases per week. Additionally, 80 percent of those abuses are perpetrated by someone known to the child.
He went on to say that it is not possible to erase the experiences of children who have been exposed to domestic violence and abuse, “We can only help them to cope with their trauma…“, Beyoğlu said.
Yeniduzen
