SINGAPORE — More than half of Singaporeans said they have experienced stress that affected how they lived their daily lives in the past year, while one in four young adults under the age of 35 said that they have seriously considered self-harm or suicide at least once.
Almost two in five people said that they had to take time off work due to stress in the past year, with three in 20 people saying that they had to do this on multiple occasions.
These were the findings from a survey by market research firm Ipsos, in its Ipsos World Mental Health Day 2023 Report published on Monday (Oct 9).
World Mental Health Day falls on Oct 10.
The survey was done across 31 countries to explore changes in how people felt about their own mental health and the factors affecting their mental well-being.
The Singapore segment of the survey was done online over two weeks with about 1,000 Singaporeans aged 21 to 74.
WHAT SINGAPOREANS SAY
Chief among Singaporeans’ list of healthcare concerns was their mental health — with close to half considering mental health one of the biggest health problems facing the country today.
Respondents were asked to choose up to three options from a list of 13 healthcare concerns, including diabetes, obesity, dementia and Covid-19.
The highest proportion of respondents chose mental health (46 per cent) ahead of cancer (38 per cent) and stress (35 per cent).
Although nearly eight in 10 Singaporeans (78 per cent) thought that their mental health was as important as their physical health, just slightly more than half (54 per cent) said that mental and physical health were treated equally by Singapore’s healthcare system — up from 43 per cent in 2021.
Other notable findings from the report include:
About a quarter of the Singaporeans said that on several occasions in the last 12 months, they had felt stressed to the point where it had an impact on how they lived their daily lives (24 per cent), and to the point where they felt like they could not cope or deal with things (23 per cent)Almost half (49 per cent) of the Singaporeans reported feeling depressed to the point that they felt sad or hopeless almost every day for weeks at a time. One in five said that they have felt this way on multiple occasions in the past year One in 10 people have seriously considered suicide or self-hurt on multiple occasions in the past yearSingaporeans are more likely to say that they often think about their physical health (66 per cent) than their mental well-being (52 per cent)Four in 10 (44 per cent) Singaporeans said that they never or did not think very much about their mental well-being