Hectic school schedule, drugs, internet causing mental ill health among children

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Mental health experts have said that inappropriately planned academic programs in schools, that do not allow children to sleep enough and play, damage the children’s developing brains, and cause mental ill health.

The executive director of Butabika National Referral Mental Hospital, Dr Juliet Nakku, said there is need to deal with such schools.

Dr Nakku also cited excessive alcohol and substance use among children as another risk factor for mental health challenges. Substance abuse involves consuming cannabis or marijuana, use of injections such as pethidine, chewing of mira and cuba that are sold to students online. Others include: snorting of cocaine (white sugar) and brown sugar (heroin).

There are also tablets of crystal meth (Ice), medicines of addiction potential which they buy from pharmacies.

She attributed the excessive alcohol and substance abuse among children to easy access, and hence the need for a law that provides some controls, especially for young people.

The Internet has also caused a lot of cyberbullying, with the bullied children turning up with a lot of anxiety and suicidal.

Dr Nakku reported that whereas the cases are on the rise, mental health services are inadequate.

“Children are grappling with mental health problems in the regions and cannot afford to come to Butabika Hospital. The ones that are out there are not being attended to properly,” she noted.

She urged government to expand these specialised mental health services, including the alcohol and drug rehabilitation services

Dr Nakku was addressing the media on the growing mental health crisis in Uganda on Thursday, June 5, 2025, at the Uganda Media Centre.

The cases

A recent study conducted by Butabika National Referral Mental Hospital, together with Makerere University School of Public Health in 2023, supported by the World Bank, found that one in 3 (30%) of school-going children aged between 11 to 17 are grappling with emotional problems, a new report has revealed.

According to a recent study conducted by Butabika National Referral Mental Hospital together with Makerere University School of Public Health in 2023, about one in 5 school-going children reported peer problems; not interacting well with their friends-peers.

The study was conducted in schools across the country with support from World Bank.

Rubbing in anecdotal facility-based data, about 30 children are admitted to the children's unit at Bukabika National Referral Mental Hospital every day. The outpatient clinic runs once a week and sees in excess of 150 children and adolescents only.

“It is not by surprise that increasingly children in school are committing suicide,” said Nakuu.

Dr Nakku noted that often such mental health illnesses are termed as emotional problems, but in the actual sense it is depression and anxiety.

After talking to schools around the country, they admitted that such conditions negatively impacted their academic achievement.

Interventions

All is not lost. Butabika National Referral Mental Hospital, together with the Ministry of Education and Sports, has developed some guidelines to have mental health embedded into the education of schools. But also to be provided within the educational institutions for children who might need it.

In this regard, the Ministry of Education and Sports, through the department of counselling and guidance, is working to approve the guidelines and will soon disseminate them.

Experts also suggest that Schools and other educational institutions should have programs to ensure mental health promotion, prevention and care are integrated into the curriculum.