FACTORS LEADING TO MENTAL ILLNESS AND ITS EFFECTS TO

HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS

____________________

A Research Report Presented to the Basic Education Department

St. Mary’s College of Tagum, Inc.
Tagum City

____________________

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for

the completion of the Junior High School
Basic Education Department

Bea Malagamba
Ryan Calamba

February 2
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Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Mental health refers to a person’s wholesome wellbeing, which also influences

daily life because it includes a person’s capacity in enjoying life. Moreover, mental

illness refers to a lot of mentally related conditions or illnesses that affects emotional,

intellectual and behavioral aspects of a person (Newman, 2017).

According to Peterson (2018) that environmental factors are caused externally to

a person and she furthermore stated that one of the causes to mental illness is having

an excessive difficulty of oneself in an environment.

10 – 20% of adolescents in schools experience mental disorders that lead to

difficulty of thinking and slowing the one’s development stage. It’s still blind to know the

cause of the mental issue among students (Schulte-Körne, 2016).

The National Center for Mental Health's statistics have suicide rates of 2.5 for

men and 1.7 for women per 100,000 members of population. The numbers are not

included unreported cases. According to a 2014 report of the World Health

Organization, there were 2,558 cases of suicide are suitable to mental health problems

in the Philippines year 2012 alone. As a public health concern, mental disorder hits the

student and young sectors of society. Living within a culture that emphasizes resilience

and humor amidst pain and personal suffering makes it all the more difficult to talk about

mental illness out in the open. The stigma surrounding mental illness only adds to the

layers of struggle of people who suffer from various mental health conditions (Tugade,

2017)
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Mental illness may lead to depression. Many teenagers in Mindanao were proven

very prone to depression. Even a person who has everything he/she wanted could have

experienced depression. Some people who had undergone depression, in fact they

think they can solve this is by committing suicide, however it is curable (Madali, et.al,

2019).

We wish to pursue this study because a majority of teenagers are exposed to

social media. This scenario can lead to mental disorders such as depression, anxiety,

and eating disorders. The use of social media has to be maximized, thereby used as an

instrument to make our lives easier and faster, not a hammer that destroys walls we

created to protect ourselves.

Social media is only a fragment of what’s causing mental health issues. As high

school students, mental illnesses are prevalent that it imposes a barrier in learning

establishments. It has a massive impact in education. And education is the key towards

a successful life. In this instance, it is given that social media threats education, which

then also hinders adolescents’ future.

As grade 10 student it may help us to be aware that overusing of social media is

one of the factors that may lead to mental disorder.

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CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

Broken Family

A 100% of children population and 10% to 20% struggles from mental illnesses.

In Brazil most of the children suffers mental disorder. Furthermore, some students stop

studying because of the family separation that effectively affects the child’s mental

health (Vicente, et.al, 2015).

Disruption in family structure can affect the mental health of a child and

also the parents. Emotional and behavioral problems mostly occur in separated families.

And mostly a person at a young age can be easily attacked by depression, substance

abuse and poverty (Campbell et.al, 2017).

According to Calderwood (2016) that children who have grown up in broken

homes has a high possibility to experience mental health problems and family breakdown

can be leading the child into poverty or growing up in a high-stress environment.

Broken Family can affect mental health of a student, mostly children from pre-

school to high school experiences deficit in emotional development. Children of all ages

may seem tearful or depressed because of their family structure (Green, 2015).

Family conflict have long term effects, even if children are older. Family with a

high level of dysfunction can cause anxiety disorders later in life. It can lead into suicidal

of a child. (Amanda, 2017).

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Social Media

Students who spend more time using smartphones and other electronic devices

are unsatisfied with their lives than students who frequently engage personally

interaction. Students who spend five or more hours a day can lead into depression, in

which can lead into suicide (Barrett, 2018).

According to Starc (2019) Children below 18 years old have shown the

correlation between spending more time on social media increased chances for self-

harm behavior, anxiety and mood changes, as well as development of depression.

Using of social media in childhood have both positive and negative effects on future

mental well-being. Moreover, spending most time on social media shows high rate of

depression than those who spent least time. Most especially to the student that are very

prone to mental disorder (Miller, 2016).

Social media is damaging child’s mental health. Over using of social media can

rise in symptoms of anxiety, depression, and eating disorders (Hurley, 2019).

Furthermore, Students who spend more than 3 hours on social media are susceptible to

depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses. Time spent on social media may

increase the risk of experiencing cyberbullying which can lead to depressive illnesses

(Williams, 2019).

Bullying
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Multiple mental health issues is associated of being a victim to bullying and a

perpetrator among adolescents (Yen, et.at, 2014). Moreover, Out of 100%, 59.7% of

student are victims of cyberbully. Victims report lower school performance and school

attachment. Controlled analyses indicated that distress was highest among victims of

both cyberbullying and school bullying Adjusted Odds Ratios from 4.38 for depressive

symptoms and 5.35 for suicide attempts are been required for medical treatment

(Coulter et.al, 2012).

The results in this study suggested that observing bullying at school predicted

risks to mental health that leads to mental illness. Most of student committing suicide

had been involved in bullying. Observing others was also found to predict high risk

irrespective of whether students were or were not victims themselves (PsycINFO 2019).

According to Benedict et.al (2014) A total of 63,997 children had data for both

parental reported mental health and bullying status of a child. And most of them were

diagnosed of depression and anxiety. Understanding the risk profile of childhood bullies

is essential in gaining a better grasp of his/her health problem and in creating useful and

appropriate resources and interventions to decrease bullying (Benedict, et.al, 2014).

Social Isolation and Loneliness

Social isolation is a social and common health problem that affects all ages,

especially elders (Miyawaki, 2015). In addition to that, according to Zavaleta et.al (2014)

it is depriving social connectivity and a pivotal aspect that considered by people as a

core hindrance for achieving well-being. Moreover, Donovan et.al (2016) states that

loneliness is a discern state of social and emotional isolation which has been connected

with cognitive and functional decline. Moreover, Cherry (2019) states that loneliness is
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an emotion that is both complex and unusual to each person because it has no single

cause, preventing and treating it potentially damages state of mind and can vary

dramatically.

In a study of Hartberg and Hegna (2014) they compared youths with and without

close friends and found out that a greater proportion of those lacking a close friend was

reported as having depressive symptoms and moreover, 1 in 3 girls without a close

friend is experiencing the said symptoms. Furthermore, Social Isolation does not only

damages physiological functions of the body but also the developing of the nervous

system’s support cells, which affects the development of cognitive functioning (No

Isolation, 2017).

Sleep Deprivation

According to Lindholm (2017) that sleep deprivation is dangerous and can lead to

various mental disorders and health problems. Furthermore, Waloszek and Raniti

(2017) stated that lack of sleep can cause anxiety and anxiety can also deprive sleep,

so it turns out that both problem directly affects each other.

Lack of sleep is harmful to a person’s well-being, it makes oneself to be more

emotionally responsive, expresses a more negative point of view and leads you to

overthink thing through (Breus, 2018). Furthermore, Watson and Cherney (2019) sleep

deprivation makes a person feel exhausted and face difficulty in performing duties and

concentrating on learning new things. In addition that, Davis (2018) states that it alters

normal functioning of attention and disrupts ability to focus on environmental sensory

input.

CHAPTER 3
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RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

A lot of factors are included that leads to mental illness which is according to

WebMd, LLC 2018 that those factors are biological, psychological and environmental.

Although in this study we only chose five which are; broken family (Campbell et.al,

2017), social media (Barrett, 2018), bullying (Coulter et.al, 2012), social isolation and

loneliness (Hartberg and Hegna, 2014), and sleep deprivation (Breus, 2018).

Factors Leading to Mental Illness

In a survey by Krasnova et.al, (2015) they found out that spending more time on

social media platforms causes one person to feel envy in a sense that, according to a

study by Fardouly et.al (2015) a person’s desire to change physical appearance after

spending time on social media, specifically on Facebook.

Social media had been the most used hobby of today’s era and we can never

deny the fact that it cause one person to feel envy by the means of being to see what

other people have that the other one doesn’t have.

According to Sleep Advisor (2020) that lack of sleep can lead to a grumpier,

exhausted and emotional early in the morning. It was furthermore stated that depriving

can lead to a serious consequences and become the root of mental changes.

Sleep is an important thing that should always be accomplished each day because

sleep serves as the rest a person can have after a tiring day and depriving it would only

cause a person an unhealthy sleep and mood swings.

Moreover, Nowak 2018 stated that social isolation and loneliness heavily affects

a person’s mood, perspective and ability to cope with stress.

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Being isolated was never ending to teenagers who are the emo type which

sometimes lead them to overthink things and keeping thoughts to him/herself.

Furthermore, Children of all ages may seem tearful or depressed because of

their family structure (Green, 2015).

Family is the basic unit of the community in which where every first would

happen to a person from birth to growing up, it is already a fact that whatever happens

in a family would always affect a person’s mental and emotional health.

And lastly, Edwards (2018) stated that bullying increases the risk on suicidal

thoughts and actions of person.

Bullying was never ending, from kindergarten to senior years it is still a trend that

cannot be stopped even for once. People who bully are once bullied which makes this

issue as contagious for its continuous spreading from one person to another. Bullied

person were led to a point in wanting to end their life for some reasons of getting tired

from what they’re going through each and every day from bullies.

Effects of Mental Illness to High School students

National Association of School Psychologists (2016) states that mental health

problems are connected to negative outcomes such as; reduce academic

achievements, decrease motivation and increase the risk of school dropout according to

Pascoe et.al (2019).

In lined with the factors discussed from the previous research question, there are

various ways that leads a person to mental illness, which means that it also have

various effects to the High School students.

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The mental illnesses studied in connection to academic success are anxiety and

depression (VanderLind, 2017). Pressure to succeed are always a tag along to aiming

towards success, pressure can always be equivalent to anxiety in ways we can never

deny or we will always expect.

Moreover Cardoza and Anderson back in 2016 states that mental illness causes

students to lose track on focusing to education due to reasons of mental health issues.

Mental Health issues was never an easy game to handle, battling with your own

thoughts each and every day had always been a never ending battle. It was never easy

and at the same time it was never challenging to argue with own thoughts and

perspective.
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