The research reveals that in 2021, the number of mental disorders in the Asian nation was estimated at 12.8 percent in males and 11.7 percent in females.

A total of 653,000 diagnoses were made in Singapore that year, which showed a three-fold increase in the number of cases among those over 70 years of age.

Anxiety and depression, largely exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, were the most common disorders, affecting approximately 185,000 and 144,000 individuals, respectively.

Leading author, Associate Professor Marie Ng, of the National University of Singapore’s Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, explained that the rise of social networking and high academic pressure were among the main triggers.

The study is part of four investigations addressing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) public health crisis under the Global Burden of Disease 2021 trial.

Across the Asean region, 80.4 million cases of mental disorders were estimated in 2021, representing an increase of nearly 70 percent since 1990, with anxiety disorders being the most common.

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