Fighting Against Students' Depression-----People's Daily, April 19,2000

Fighting Against Students' Depression

Fighting Against Students' DepressionAn anti-mental depression campaign, focusing on college students, was started at Beijing University this week.

The project was designed to help college students, who have been suffering from depression, to get better through both psychological and medical care.

Li N., a 1999 graduate in finance from Beijing University, is the initiator of the project, who has been hampered by depression for more than two years.

Li recovered from the disease which almost drove him to suicide under a doctor's care.

"I have noticed that there are still many college students who are suffering from mental depression, and that prompted me to start this program," Li said.

The Psychological Department of Beijing University and Beijing Medical University gave Li support when he prepared this program, and their mental disease experts promised to provide free consultations.

Professor Chen Xueshi, a prestigious psychological expert, revealed that depression has led to more than one-fourth of the suicide cases in the country in the past decades.

Special research focusing on mentally ill patients at eight selected universities during 1991-1995 showed that the suicide caused by mental depression is 24 per 100,000 students. According to their promotion plan, a series of publicity activities will be launched at colleges nationwide with the help of the Ministry of Education.