Singaporeans say mental health and physical health are equally important

Singapore, 12 Oct 2021 – These are the results of the latest 30-country Ipsos survey conducted from 20 August to 3 September 2021 marking World Mental Health 2021.

Summary of findings:

• On average, eight in 10 (79%) Singaporeans say that their mental and physical health are equally important when it comes to their personal health.
• But only 43% think that healthcare system in Singapore treat mental and physical health with equal importance. Another similar proportion (40%) think healthcare treats physical health with greater importance.
• After Coronavirus as the top health concern (67%), 41% of Singaporeans believe that Mental health is the most important health problem facing people in the country, more so than cancer (33%).
• In the past year, about 1 in 4 Singaporeans have felt depressed to the point that they felt sad or hopeless almost every day for a couple of weeks or more.

How often do you think about your mental/physical wellbeing?

While about half (49%) of Singaporeans say that they think about their mental wellbeing ‘fairly’ or very’ often, people tend to think about their physical wellbeing more frequently (65% fairly/very often).

There are some generational differences; 60% of under-35s tend to think about their mental health more, compared to 45% of Singaporeans 35 – 49 years old.

How important are mental and physical health to you?

On average, eight in 10 (79%) of Singaporeans say they consider their mental and physical health to be equally important when it comes to their personal health.

Among those who think one is one more important than the other, more people are likely to select mental health (16%) than physical health (4%).

How are mental and physical health treated in the country’s healthcare systems?

Despite widespread agreement that mental and physical health are equally important to an overall picture of health, Singaporeans are less likely to think that the country’s healthcare system treats them equally: 43% say this is the case, while 40% say that physical health is treated with greater importance. Only 10% think that mental health is treated as more important.

During the past year have you ever…?

In the past year, 30% of Singaporeans say that they had felt stressed to the point where it had an impact on how they lived their daily lives; 26% of Singaporeans had felt stressed to the point where they felt like they could not cope/deal with things; 24% had felt depressed to the point that they felt sad or hopeless almost every day for a couple of weeks or more; and yet another 12% had seriously considered suicide or self-hurt.

Mental health as a top global health concern.

Our global average across 30 countries sees mental health emerge this year as the third most important health problem facing the public in their country.  Almost a third (31%) see this as a top health issue, only 3 points shy of the figure recorded for cancer (34%). The top health concern in 2021 is Coronavirus (70%), continuing what we saw last year when it was first introduced in the survey.

Mental health is the top health concern in Sweden (63%) and Chile (59%). After these two, the countries that are particularly likely to say mental health is a key health concern are: Australia (47%), Canada (43%), Colombia (41%), Singapore (40%), Brazil (40%), and Great Britain (40%).

Melanie Ng, Director of Public Affairs at Ipsos in Singapore said, “It is highly concerning that the percentage of young Singaporeans experiencing certain types of mental health disorders or have been thinking about mental health issues has risen significantly over corresponding increase in older adults. Our findings have suggested a generational shift in mental deterioration as well as an overall increase across all ages.

What also draws my attention is the share of mind when one considers overall personal health. Mental health is catching up fiercely as a key determinant of one’s personal health, aside from physical health. This is likely to be an irreversible trend and one that we cannot ignore in terms of closing any treatment gap we may have now.”

About the study:

These are the results of a 30-market survey conducted by Ipsos on its Global Advisor online platform. Ipsos interviewed a total of 21,513 adults aged 18-74 in the United States, Canada, Israel, Malaysia, South Africa, and Turkey, aged 21-74 in Singapore, and 16-74 in 24 other markets between Friday, August 20 and Friday, September 3, 2021.