By Nurul Naimah
GOMBAK, 13 October 2018: A four-day exhibition on Mental Health Week on the theme “Young People and Mental Health”, featuring a number of activities to expose and educate the campus community on mental health issues, was recently held at HS Square.
The Mental Health Week was organised in conjunction with World Health Organisation (WHO)s official theme for World Mental Health Day 2017 which was celebrated this year on 10 October.
The most awaited and highlighted activity at the exhibition was the mental health screening aimed at helping the students and staff to go through their challenges and to lessen their burden through a deep, yet effective conversation with the screeners.
In an interview with one of the screeners, Syahmi Azhad of the Department of Psychology, who is also a final year student, it was revealed that this screening process used a tool called DASS-21 to get a picture of the state of mental health of their clients. DASS is a short form of “Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scales”.
œA lot of people feel shy to have a face to face counselling with the professionals, so this will be the first step for them to seek help, said Serene, a representative from Teleme.my.
Telemy.my is a new, yet a well-known application that has been introduced to the students during the exhibition to expose them to another way to heal their problems on mental health. Should they have the intention to consult the professionals which come from psychiatrists or psychologists, they can contact them using the online consultation.
Its in “My Mind” book that has been launched to portray mental health issues in the form of creative artworks. Games section and World Mental Health Week (WMHW) merchandise booth were also made available to support the Mental Health Week.
According to the organiser, this exhibition has brought a lot of positive impact to the IIUM community, especially to the students, whereby they were exposed to the awareness through video and mental health care section. ‘This gave them the opportunity to become better informed of ways to cope with problems of mental health.” ***