{"id":382488,"date":"2026-04-16T12:58:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T12:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/382488\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T12:58:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T12:58:18","slug":"number-of-hong-kong-secondary-students-with-mental-illness-doubles-in-5-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/382488\/","title":{"rendered":"Number of Hong Kong secondary students with mental illness doubles in 5 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The number of secondary school students diagnosed with mental illness in Hong Kong has doubled over the past five academic years, with the increase potentially under-reported due to reluctance among some pupils and parents to disclose health information, education authorities have said.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The data is in line with a trend recorded by the Health Bureau showing a growing number of people aged 15 to 24 being treated at public hospital psychiatric departments.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Among that age range, the number of patients diagnosed with bipolar disorder and depression rose by 57 per cent and 43 per cent, respectively, over the five-year period.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">According to official figures submitted by education authorities to the legislature on Tuesday, the number of secondary school students diagnosed with mental illness rose from 660 in the 2020-21 academic year to 1,330 in 2024-25.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">The number of students with special needs saw the largest increase, with the category including nine types of mental illnesses, including autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">In primary schools, the number of students diagnosed with mental illness also rose from 130 to 200 in the same period, a 54 per cent increase.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The number of secondary school students diagnosed with mental illness in Hong Kong has doubled over the past&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":382489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[110278,3404,15463,6509,10411,3419,152740,134,62681,4431,66915,554,1602,555,111,43,139,69,198747,22069,198748,128324,8911],"class_list":{"0":"post-382488","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-advisory-committee-on-mental-health","9":"tag-anxiety","10":"tag-autism-spectrum-disorder","11":"tag-bipolar-disorder","12":"tag-department-of-health","13":"tag-depression","14":"tag-education-bureau","15":"tag-health","16":"tag-health-bureau","17":"tag-hong-kong","18":"tag-hospital-authority","19":"tag-mental-health","20":"tag-mental-illness","21":"tag-mentalhealth","22":"tag-new-zealand","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-newzealand","25":"tag-nz","26":"tag-primary-schools","27":"tag-scmp","28":"tag-secondary-school-students","29":"tag-social-welfare-department","30":"tag-suicide"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=382488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=382488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=382488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=382488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}