Two-year study aims to get S’poreans to seek help for mental illness

SINGAPORE — With many people in Singapore suffering from mental illness but not seeking treatment, the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) said it has been conducting a two-year study to gain insight into Singaporeans’ understanding and attitudes towards mental conditions, so that more can recognise their conditions and seek help early.

The S$1 million national population-based study is funded by the Health Ministry and began in June last year. It is led by Associate Professor Chong Siow Ann, Vice-Chairman of the Medical Board (Research) at the IMH, who said it comes after a separate study conducted in 2010 identified significant gaps in the treatment of mental conditions.

Findings from the 2010 Singapore Mental Health Study showed that as many as 96.2 per cent of those who had suffered from alcohol abuse had never sought help or treatment. It was the same with those who had an obsessive compulsive disorder or a major depressive disorder. Ninety per cent of the former and 59.6 per cent of the latter had never sought help or treatment.

Prof Chong said: “Critical information such as gender, education, religion, ethnicity, personal experience of mental illness, etc, and how they would impact and shape mental health knowledge and attitudes are also unknown.”

The research team hopes the study’s results will encourage the early recognition of mental illness, leading to treatment. The information gleaned will also help with policy planning and result in more targeted public education programmes on mental health. The results will be shared with agencies such as the Health Promotion Board and the Agency for Integrated Care.

Nanyang Technological University Associate Professor Kwok Kian Woon, a co-investigator of the study, said his role as a sociologist will help the team better understand what Singaporeans with different backgrounds know regarding mental health.

About 3,000 Singapore residents, aged between 18 and 65 years old, will be randomly selected for the survey. The three main ethnic groups will each take up about 30 per cent of the sample size to ensure a sufficient number within each group for further analysis.

During the survey, interviewers will briefly describe one of five mental disorders identified by the research team before posing a series of questions to assess respondents’ understanding of the mental condition.

The study will also include tests to assess respondents’ attitudes towards seeking professional psychological help and those with mental disorders.