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0 For our first ‘Sunday survey’, we asked our Facebook based 1in4 followers, what mental health conditions you suffer from, and we had an overwhelming response with over 1500 answers.
The Results: Which mental health condition do you suffer from?
Of 1522 respondents almost half (48.9%) suffer from 2 or more conditions, most commonly this would be depression and anxiety, though of course other conditions are included within this percentage.
Of those who suffer from one condition, the majority were, perhaps unsurprisingly, depression (19.8%) and anxiety (17%). The remaining 14% of replies were made up of Borderline Personality Disorder (5.7%), Bipolar (5.1%) and ‘other’ (3.6%). The full breakdown can be seen in the chart below:
Your Comments
Of those who selected multiple, a selection of the comments detailing these conditions is below:
– Multiple. Semantic Pragmatic Disorder, depression, anxiety and getting tested for bi polar.
– Bpd, ptsd, anxiety and depression
– diagnosed clinical depressive with personality disorder over 15yrs ago
– Depression, anxiety disorder , emotionally unstable split personality disorder, bi polar (cyclophmia) and adhd
– Dissociative disorder, generalised anxiety disorder and depression
– Depression, social anxiety, general anxiety, ptsd, ocd traits, paranoia, panic disorder and complex health issues
– Anxiety, depression and PTSD, brought on by the death of my 8 week old daughter
– Depression and anxiety brought on by loosing my husband to cancer and my only son of 33 in road collision Christmas Eve 2016
– Anxiety & Depression,I don’t think you can have one without the other.
– Depression and anxiety… They go together like G and T
Those last two may have a point! Personally I put myself in the survey as having depression as it is my overriding condition, but I do also have anxiety.
Prevalence Rates
Below is a chart detailing the breakdown of mental health conditions of adults in the UK in 2016 (source cited under the graph). The interesting thing to note is that generally speaking anxiety is far more common than depression. However this is not reflected as such in our survey. The reason for this remains unclear*. However my personal assumption being that those suffering from anxiety are more likely to think twice before selecting one of the options given others on facebook may see their answer.
Perhaps linked to the concern of who may or may not answer such a survey, there was also a comment of the survey being intrusive. The survey is open to that accusation as how you have voted can be seen by others on facebook. Exactly who else being down to the privacy settings on your own account. We only want people to take part in these surveys who feel comfortable doing so. We do encourage openness on the topic. Additionally, we believe strongly that the more we talk, and are open, the more we can chip away at stigma. However we aren’t naïve, we know that stigma is still rife. As such we fully appreciate the bravery of everyone answering these surveys in such a public setting.
Disclaimer
*It should be noted from a research perspective that the results are likely impacted by the fact that those not comfortable answering will not have done so. As such the results are a cross section of those who feel comfortable answering such a question. All research has such issues (if you take the temperature of water, you alter the temperature when the thermometer enters the water) and should be taken into account before making assumptions from such reesearch.
UNITED STATES
UNITED KINGDOM
