The fourth annual Mental State of the World Report has continued to rank South Africa as among the bottom three countries in the world with the worst state of mental health.
This year's annual Sapien Labs mental health report focused on the dramatic decline in mental wellbeing from 2019, 2020, 2021, and in the following years, finding that the state of mental health had continued to show no sign of recovery either.
“Although it was once believed that once the lockdowns were lifted and the threat of the pandemic subsided our collective mental health would begin a recovery towards its pre-pandemic levels, the data across 64 countries however argues otherwise. The data suggests that the effects of diminished global mental wellbeing have become a new normal,” said Jennifer Newson, Lead Scientist for Cognitive and Mental Health at Sapien Labs.
For the 2023 report, data was collected from over 500 000 respondents in 13 languages across 71 countries spanning nine regions, taking participants through a comprehensive online survey using the Mental Health Quotient (MHQ) assessment.
The assessment is an anonymous web-based assessment of mental health and well-being survey that comprehensively covers symptoms across 10 major psychiatric disorders, as well as positive elements of mental function.
Researchers found that overall mental wellbeing remained at its post-pandemic low with yet again no sign of movement towards pre-pandemic levels.
They also found that younger generations, particularly those under the age of 35, experienced the steepest declines in mental wellbeing during the Covid-19 pandemic while those over 65 stayed steady.
The Dominican Republic, Sri Lanka and Tanzania were found to be at the top of rankings with Mhq scores of 88 or higher, while Brazil, South Africa, the United Kingdom and Uzbekistan were at the bottom.
The bottom ranked countries Mhq scores ranged anywhere from 48 to 53 out of 100.
Another startling finding as per researchers Rapid Report has been that the younger children were when they got their first smartphone the worse their mental health outcomes in adulthood.
A sample of 27 969 respondents, between 18-24 years old, showed that 74% of female respondents who got their first smartphone at age 6 had Mhq scores that fell within a Distressed or Struggling range.
This reportedly decreased to 61% for those who acquired their first smartphone at age 10, and 52% for those who acquired their first smartphone at age 15.
“The impacts of owning a smartphone at a young age were especially pronounced for the dimension of social self and drove symptoms such as suicidal thoughts, feeling detached from reality and feelings of aggression towards others.”
“The age at which children first own a smartphone, and the way this consequently opens up their world to the internet and social media, therefore seems to be a key factor in declining mental wellbeing trends. The challenge we have ahead of us is to understand the drivers of our collective mental wellbeing such that we can align our ambitions and goals with the functional capacity and genuine prosperity of human beings,” advised the report.
Saturday Star
goitsemang.matlhabe@inl.co.za