Men’s mental-health survey: 1 in 5 in crisis, only a third sought help
Maybe a man in your life — your partner, your son, your brother — has told you he feels anxious, or that he feels so tired that every little thing he tries to do feels like an effort. Maybe you’ve noticed he is restless or fidgety. Perhaps he admits to feeling depressed, worthless or hopeless. You might know that these are all signs of psychological distress, and yet you can’t get him to go see a mental health professional. A new survey suggests you are not alone, and neither is he. A SOM survey of 2,000 Quebec men done last month suggests that 22 per cent — more than one in five — are experiencing psychological distress. And only 29 per cent of those who feel this way have sought help from mental health resources over the past year.
“The goal of the survey was to better understand how to get men to more easily go for help,” said Janie Houle, a professor of psychology at the Université du Québec à Montréal who headed the team of researchers at the Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal that did the survey. “We already knew that men consult less (than women), so we wanted to really focus this survey on what we can do to make it easier for men to consult.” Finding ways to get mentally distressed men the help they need is a matter of life and death, she noted. About 1,000 people kill themselves every year in Quebec, and 80 per cent of suicide victims are men. An earlier survey by the Institut de la statistique du Québec showed that 9.5 per cent of men surveyed had seen a professional counsellor in 2010-2011 compared to 15.1 per cent of women. The gender difference was most pronounced among younger people. For example, among men aged 25-49, 10.9 per cent had seen a professional counsellor, while 18.5 per cent of women in that age range had done so. The survey, commissioned by two Quebec organizations devoted to men’s health issues, suggests that family doctors can play a key role in helping men make the decision to consult a psychotherapist. The men were asked to rate the probability, from one to 10, that they would see a therapist if a doctor recommended it, if a spouse recommended it, or if friends recommended it. The average response for doctor was 7.8 out of 10, for spouse 6.8 and for friends 6. Other key findings include: Men are most likely to ask for help when they notice the issue is affecting their children. On average, respondents estimated the probability that they would seek help in that situation at 7.9 out of 10. Respondents rated their probability of seeking professional help if they were “having thoughts about suicide” at 7.4 out of 10 on average. Other situations that had an impact on the likelihood men will consult a counsellor include: their spouse threatening to leave them (average rating 6.1 out of 10 likelihood), loss of libido (6), marital separation (6.1), depression (6) and loss of a job (5.3). Among the 269 anglophone men surveyed, 76 per cent said having counselling available in English would be a “very helpful” factor in pushing them toward consultation. But the most important factor that brings men to consult a mental health professional is feeling that the professional can help them in a concrete way to actually solve their problem, Houle said. “So beyond listening, they want concrete tools and advice given by a credible professional.” The health and social services system needs to do a better job of publicizing what exactly psychotherapy entails and how it works, she said. “Men seem to need to know what to expect if they consult, so what this tells us is there is a lot of work to do to demystify psycho-social counselling, how it works, why it’s important and why it is effective particularly for men.” One of the key recommendations from the study is the creation of a website where men can learn about counselling. “A website that lifts the stigma around men asking for help could be a helpful resource, by showing (videos of) men talking about how they saw a counsellor, that it helped,” along with information about what psychological counselling entails, Houle suggested. The cost of counselling services can be a hindrance for many men, the survey indicates. Being able to make an appointment online, having a loved one make the appointment for them and accompany them to a first appointment would also be helpful, the survey results indicated.