Shenzhen’s health bureau is conducting a mental health survey involving 7,000 to 8,000 people starting Thursday.

Some 3,500 permanent residents will be chosen from 100 housing estates in the city randomly for the survey, while the other 3,500 interviewees will be selected randomly from the registration records with the public security bureau among temporary residents.

The four-month survey is designed to help authorities make decisions on health policy.

The survey questionnaire is based on the latest revision of a surveying guideline provided by the World Health Organization. The booklet covered a lot of information regarding mental diseases, demography and psychology, said Zhang Fanxing, a section chief of Kangning Hospital, which will conduct the survey.

The 50 interviewers, half from the hospital and half recruited from society had received a monthlong training course for the survey, Zhang said.

Shenzhen had its first epidemiology survey on psychiatry in 1996. But the city has undergone tremendous changes in the number of population, population structure, economy and the development of mental diseases over the past decade.

Mental harassment and suicide cases involving minors and senior people are increasing. Data collected in the 1996 survey had far lagged behind to explain the mental health situation at present, said Zhang.

(Shenzhen Daily September 9, 2005)