📙論文名稱：
Physical Education as a Preventive Intervention for Childhood and Adolescent Depression and Suicide Risks: A System Dynamics Model
📙刊登處：2026 IFKAD國際學術研討會
📙作者姓名： Min-Ren Yan, Hsin-Yeh Hsieh
論文摘要：
Childhood and adolescent depression and suicide risks have become serious problems that require system interventions. The report by the Campus Security Report Center (Ministry of Education, 2024) indicates that self-harm and suicide are the second leading cause of death among students. In addition, the number of reported cases and deaths increase year by year. Consequently, there is an urgent need to investigate the underlying causes and formulate effective intervention strategies to address these critical issues.
As an adult, everyone hopes children can grow up with health and fulfill in happiness. Nevertheless, in the 2010s, the prevalence of suicidal behavior started to increase in the youth of Taiwan, as well as suicide rate (Chang et al., 2023). Moreover, this trend is not only occurring in Taiwan but also bringing out serious impacts all around the world. In the US, the number of pediatric mental health-related visits inclined almost three million from 2011 to 2020. Suicide-related visits also increased significantly (Bommersbach et al., 2023). The reasons why the youth mental health issues and suicide risks rise as a trend result from multiple factors, for instance, higher academic pressures, extending social media use and family or relationship problems.
Another problem emerged rapidly in recent years is that children and adolescents are addicted to the internet, online games and social media. Evidence shows that Internet and gaming disorder is similar to drug addiction; besides, it also involves emotional regulation and behavioral inhibition (Weinstein et al., 2017). Inappropriate digital media use leads to the risks of physical, social-emotional and cognitive (Hutton et al., 2022). Furthermore, phone use at nighttime is associated with sleep deprivation, psychological distress and cyberbullying (Centofanti et al., 2024). The previous studies all show that digital addiction affects emotional competence and mental health of youth, bringing about the underlying causes of depression, self harm and suicide risks.
To resolve this phenomenon, several countries have formulated policies of improving accessibility toward mental health systems. For example, Prompt mental health care (PMHC) in Norway, @Ease in Netherlands, and Suicide Prevention Austria (SUPRA) in Austria, these are the best practices to facilitate access to mental health issues (OECD, 2025). In Taiwan, the government also provides the policy of free counseling three times per year to the people whose age between 15 to 45 (Ministry of Health and Welfare, 2025). Mental health care and counseling always happen when the problems have already existed, though. It could not prevent mental illness from the beginning, so the methods to strengthen the mindset need to be figured out promptly.
Exercises can benefit both physical and mental health. Regularly doing exercises advances cognitive function and self-esteem and reduces depression, anxiety and stress (Holland et al., 2024). Exercises also act as treatment in symptoms of mental health conditions (Merwin & Smith, 2021). If children spend more time on exercises, depression and suicide risks might decline. Students in Taiwan, however, spend most of their time on academic learning, which decreases the time for doing physical activities. Therefore, maintaining habits of doing exercises should be promoted by formal or informal physical education. Through physical education, children could understand more about how to take care of themselves in both physical and mental aspects.
This research aims to use systems thinking and system dynamics to clarify the links between physical education, childhood depression and other underlying drivers, while also proposing a system map to contribute a new model to the field. The goal is to evaluate the potential of physical education in bolstering mental health and moderating depression symptoms. According to studies above, we realize that childhood depression and suicide risks are severe problems with inappropriate behavioral systems, and the number of children who suffer from these issues rapidly increase because of many reasons such as inappropriate digital use. There are some policies to assist children; however, mental health care only acts as therapy but not prevention. Exercise relates to both physical and mental health. Promoting exercises by physical education might help children improve sports participation rate, and in turn, decrease childhood depression and suicide risks.
