In the 2021/22 school year, the Croatian Public Health Institute conducted among high school freshmen, a YP CORE questionnaire which showed that 11.20 percent of them thought about harming themselves.

The director of the Split-Dalmatia Public Health Institute (NZJZ), Zeljka Karin, said that, according to the results which assess the risk in mental health, the share of positive results in Croatia for girls is 13 percent, for boys 6.2 percent, and in Split-Dalmatia county, the share of positive results was 8.4 percent for girls and 5.2 percent for boys.

Students who answered positively to the question of whether they thought of harming themselves are at high risk for possible consequences, said Karin, adding that such a child must be treated and go to a counselling center with a school medicine doctor, a psychiatrist and a psychologist. and parents are also invited for talks.
With so many positive responses, it is assumed that the children are “at risk for mental health”. Because of this, the school medicine doctor pays special attention to such a child, talks to them and their parents and carries out the necessary further work, she said and warned that this problem should not be taken lightly.

“Prompted by the results of the YP CORE (Young Person’s Clinical Outcomes in Routine Evaluation) questionnaire, but also by the demands related to the mental health of children and young people, we will employ another psychologist in the School Medicine Service who, in addition to the work in Mental Health Service and addiction prevention, will help us to take care of those children we triage on the YP CORE questionnaires,” said Karin.

Korajlija: Croatia has no experts

Dr. Anita Lauri Korajlija, associate professor of the Department of Health and Clinical Psychology at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb, told Hina when commenting on the mental health of children and young people that the help of psychiatrists and psychologists is increasingly sought.

“However, this is not only a Croatian problem, but a global one, especially for girls because the increase is much more dramatic for them. The fact is that until recently we had a pandemic in which children and young people suffered a lot, among other things because they were isolated during that period, considering that social contacts and other activities were prohibited,” said Lauri Korajlija.

The trend is increasing at the global level as well, she said. Croatia lacks specialists, psychologists and psychiatrists in primary health care, Korajlija said. She pointed out that there is a three-month wait for a referral to see a psychiatrist, and that the number of referrals for psychiatrists for children and young people has increased by more than 280 percent in recent years.

Problems with children occur due to peer abuse and in families, due to eating disorders and behavioural disorders, but anxiety and depression are the most common disorders.