Mental Health in Aboriginal and Non-Aboriginal Children and Parenting Stress

There is a dearth of studies conducted on the mental health of the Malaysian aboriginal people who are known locally as the 'Orang Asli' (OA). The purpose of this study was to describe the behavioral and emotional problems in OA and non-aboriginal (NA) children in Kampung Sungai Buah and its association with parenting stress in both communities.

This was a cross-sectional comparative community study. A total of 27 OA and 39 NA parents answered the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and Parenting Stress Index-Short Form (PSI-SF) regarding 64 OA children and 80 NA children.

OA children had higher total SDQ scores than NA children (p = 0.010). This difference disappeared after controlling for parental education. OA children had less conduct problems than NA children (p = 0.005). OA showed overall lower parental distress (p = 0.032) compared to NA. OA mothers had more parental distress than OA fathers (p = 0.02). There was a negatively moderate correlation between total SDQ and total PSI-SF scores within both OA (r = -0.27) and NA (r = -0.50) communities.

With the OA community being at a significant disadvantage in terms of education and income, it is worrying that the Orang Asli children experience as many behavioral and emotional problems as a conventional community. However, the parents may not clearly express their difficulties to others. These are important issues to keep in mind when designing services for the OA in this community.