JAMAICAN high school students are stressed, suicidal, bullied, smoke and drink, are obese, lonely and their parents, for the most part, have no clue. This, if a survey on student health conducted by the National Council on Drug Abuse (NCDA) among Jamaican students in grades seven to 12 between April and June 2010 last year is to be believed.

The findings of the Global School-based Student Health Survey (GSHS), which was funded by the Pan American Health Organisation (PAHO) and the Canadian Government, were presented to the Ministry of Health last October, but the breakout of the statistics has only now been made public, with the Sunday Observer receiving a copy of the data fact sheet.

This student health survey was conducted at the same time as the student tobacco use survey — which sparked alarm among medical practitioners, counsellors and educators after it was publicised last year.

That bit of research showed children experimenting with smoking at younger ages than previously, with 86.3 per cent of teens between 13 and 15 who had ever smoked reporting that they tried their first cigarette before age 14.

Other data out of this survey that made headlines last year showed that 80 per cent of students who had ever tried illicit substances — such as ganja and hard drugs — had done so before turning 14.

However, other critical data were seemingly lost in the shuffle, including that 22 per cent of the 1,623 teens in the sample group had tried to kill themselves more than once in the 12 months prior to the survey — between June 2009 and June 2010.

According to Dr Ellen Campbell Grizzle, director of information and research at the NCDA, the statistics are especially pertinent now, given recent teen suicides and reports of an increase in the incidence of depression and other mental illness among the nation's student population.

"This study really gives us some of the more current information on the state of mind of our 12 to 15-year-olds with regards to them considering attempting suicide, and we're seeing there, that one out of five is considering, or rather has considered attempting suicide in the 12 months (up to June 2010)," Campbell Grizzle explained.

The study also shows that the rate of suicidal fantasies is higher among females than males — 19.8 per cent of teen boys surveyed, compared to a significantly larger 25.7 per cent of the girls studied.

For attempted suicide the ratio is similar — 23 per cent of the girls who completed the questionnaire had tried to take their own lives, as against 21 per cent of the boys.

In a Sunday Observer story published in early April, president of the Jamaica Psychiatric Association Dr Yvonnie Bailey-Davidson said the number of suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts she has seen in children in private practice and on consultancy visits to public hospitals had increased astronomically since the start of the year, and that those affected seem to be getting younger.

The spike, which she said she had noticed for the first time in 16 years of practice, represented a 50 per cent jump in the numbers she usually sees.

"I've been seeing more suicidal ideation, more self-mutilation, and some of them are actually trying to kill themselves with overdose and hanging," Bailey-Davidson said.

Clinical Psychologist Dr Tammy Haynes also said she had seen a corresponding increase in suicidal thoughts and actions among children she treats, presenting anecdotal evidence suggesting that over the last two years there has been an approximate increase of 50-70 per cent in the number of children under the age of 12 who are referred to her with these issues.

She told the Sunday Observer that what she had found out about these children generally is that "sometimes they wish they just didn't wake up in the morning".

Haynes, who specialises in neuropsychology, linked this to problems they are experiencing at school and that some of them were being bullied.

The Jamaica GSHS has corroborated her hunch, citing claims by 40 per cent of the respondents that they had been bullied one or more days over the month prior to their doing the researchers' questionnaire.

"If we go on to the business of violence and unintentional injury and we talk about bullying; you have heard in the United States the grave concern about bullying in that country and we are seeing it here too, that the levels of bullying and getting into serious fights is about two out of 10, or one out of five, or about 20 per cent," she said.

The study reported an average 50 per cent of the students saying that they had been in physical fights over the past year, with Campbell Grizzle suggesting a link to being bullied or bullying others.

Almost 60 per cent of the students surveyed reported having been seriously injured in these types of altercations at least once between June 2009 and June 2010. Almost 64 per cent of the boys and 55.5 per cent of the girls made this claim.

"So it really is a call to action for all of us who are trying to, in some way or the other, change Jamaica and begin that process by interacting with the young who will be the future producers and leaders of the country," said Campbell Grizzle.

The mental health portion of the survey also noted that almost 10 per cent of the male respondents and eight per cent of the girls had no close friends.

Parenting was also looked at with the Jamaica GSHS determining that there were significantly fewer children who felt their parents knew what was going on in their heads and understood their problems.

"In terms of parental presence, the students are really saying that in the majority of cases, their parents do not understand their concerns and worries, and students said their parents — the majority — don't know what they are doing in their spare time," Campbell Grizzle explained.

An average of 40 per cent of the children surveyed said their parents knew what they had been up to in the month before the study.

Questions about alcohol use also yielded important results; 52.5 per cent of the children surveyed said they had had at least one alcoholic drink in the past 30 days, with 35 per cent of the 13 to 15 year olds saying they had actually been drunk at least once in their short lives.

In fact, 80 per cent of those who had ever had alcohol said they had taken their first sip before they hit age 14.

Interestingly, the survey also looked at how many children regularly drink non-alcoholic beverages or sodas. 72.5 per cent of the teens said they indulged in the fizzy stuff one or more times a day. Almost 22 per cent of students surveyed were overweight and six per cent were obese.

"So this gives us a lot of food for thought, I think, to dig into what is really happening with our adolescent population and, more importantly, how we can try to make those interventions that may change this picture, because this is not an encouraging picture by any means," said Campbell Grizzle.

She suggested that children don't have the psychological tools to cope with what has become a very difficult world for not just them, but their parents to live in.

"It's a difficult time for all of us, some of us are more philosophical... We kind of raise ourselves out of it and release in our heads. We don't take drugs, but we kind of live on another plane to escape. Some of the young people don't have those skills," she said.

"What we need to give them are coping skills," Campbell Grizzle said, insisting that there is an upside despite the survey results.

"The majority of our young people do not use (drugs or alcohol)."

"No matter what the data tells you, when you look at them comparatively speaking, the majority do not use. Many of them are in some terrible circumstances, but that tells you something about the natural resilience of our Jamaican people and their innate ambition to do well and transcend their circumstances," she said.